Open Source Intelligence Resources for the Intelligence Professional
by The 434th Military Intelligence Detachment
OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES FOR THE INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONAL
The 434th Military Intelligence Detachment (Strategic)
200 Wintergreen Avenue
New Haven, CT 06515
Forward
As Americans, we live in an information age. As soldiers, our success on the battlefield will depend on our ability to manage information in war. As military intelligence officers, our ability to access, process, analyze and disseminate intelligence information quickly and effectively can determine the outcome of future wars. The purpose of this handbook is to enhance the capabilities of MI Officers by incorporating Open Source Information (OSI) into their thinking, training and war-fighting agenda.
While the acronym OSI is used throughout this handbook to represent open source information, it is important to distinguish OSI from the other INT's (HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT) that are collection activities that generally produce classified products. Open source information is acquired from a wide range of sources in the information marketplace.
OSI is information drawn from the vast collections of information in the open, unclassified literature. Researchers in industry and the academic world, journalists, and governments produce a continuous flood of this information. It deals with every part of the world and every aspect of human existence. It is collected, published or broadcast in unending torrents.
Dramatic increases in the power and availability of computers support the tools required to store and retrieve useful information from the vast open source literature. This manual presents the basic concepts of identifying, accessing and searching computerized databases. The effective use of OSI may require change both in individual and organizational perspectives and skills. These changes and the reasons for them are discussed in the handbook.
Finally, a section describes the costs and benefits of OSI to the MI officer.
This handbook stresses the importance of OSI to the MI officer faced with shifting and unanticipated threats, shortened response times, the need to share intelligence with coalition partners, and diminishing budgets. This manual would not have been possible without the assistance of Mr. Robert D. Steele, President of OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc., a non-profit educational corporation based in Oakton, Virginia. He has provided advice, criticism and a rich store of material on the theory and practice of OSI.
Mr. Steele, a major in the Reserve of the United States Marine Corps, served as a GM-14 and the founding Special Assistant and Deputy Director of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center. It was there that he discovered, after a lifetime spent collecting secrets, that he could meet 80% of his consumers' requirements, at 20% of the cost of classified information, using only open sources of intelligence.
The handbook was prepared by the 434th Military Intelligence Detachment(Strategic), an Army Reserve Unit, as part of its 1993-94 training project in support of the Department of Tactics, Intelligence and Military Science at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Members of the MID study team were: LTC Robert R. Simmons, Commander; CW4 Alan D. Tompkins, Project Officer; LTC Martin J. Foncello, Jr., Military Intelligence Officer and SGT Eliot A. Jardines, Senior Analyst.
Questions or comments may be directed to:
Commander
434th Military Intelligence Detachment (Strategic)
200 Wintergreen Avenue
New Haven, CT 06515.
The Project Officer may be contacted by electronic mail at 76314.2052@compuserve.com or by U.S. mail at:
P.O. Box 928
Williston, VT 05495.
Robert R. Simmons
COL, MI
Commanding
1. Overview
Overview
Pity the hapless intelligence analyst! After four decades of studying almost exclusively, anything with a Red Star painted on its side, the intelligence community is now tasked with a mission impossible: to boldly go into the unknown to monitor and track potential threats to Western interests in any one of 80 countries.
This handbook is designed to acquaint intelligence professionals with the wide range of sources and tools currently available to collect and utilize intelligence information from open sources. These sources and tools offer the intelligence professional unparalleled opportunities to provide commanders and policy makers the timely, accurate and balanced information they require. As such, they solve the dilemma of the "hapless intelligence analyst" who can no longer rely simply on classified sources to answer the myriad questions presented to him.
This handbook describes the characteristics of these information resources and presents the technology employed to access, search and store electronic information.
In order to make full and effective use of the information resources
described in this handbook, you may have to re-think some of your ideas about
the duties and responsibilities of an intelligence professional. The
organization in which you work may also have to change. Both personal and
organizational change can be difficult and even painful.
However, the U.S. role in a rapidly-changing world compels intelligence professionals at all levels to examine new opportunities and to exploit those which enhance the responsiveness and quality of the products which they produce.
While the dramatic explosion of information technology will change the profession and its organizations, the need for reasoned, balanced and professional human judgment will not change. In fact, the skills of the intelligence analyst are even more important in the current information-rich environment.
This handbook discusses the wide range of open information resources and the techniques used to explore and use them. It also discusses the benefits of utilizing them, both in the quality and timeliness of the intelligence products produced and in cost reduction.
Welcome to the Information Age.
2. Information - a professional necessity
Information - grist for the mill and the final product
Intelligence is the collection, analysis and dissemination of information For the intelligence officer, this process is driven by the commander's needs. This focus was present in Caesar's legions, in the wars that preceded his time and in all of the time since he crossed the Rubicon into Gaul.
The technology has changed, the urgency has increased and the volume of information has exploded. However, the single, unchanging goal of all of these efforts has been, is, and will continue to be to provide the commander or policy maker with the focused and balanced intelligence upon which sound decisions are made.
The intelligence professional provides the knowledge, judgment and skills in
these activities. Just as any professional must understand the available
tools, the intelligence officer must understand the tools available for collecting, analyzing and disseminating information.
Never done
Some jobs are characterized by very clear task definition and measurement. If
you are told that you must stack up a pile of boxes, each box added to the
pile is a clear indication of your progress toward completing the job.
The job of an intelligence professional, however, is different. It has some
of the characteristics of that recurring nightmare many of us have; you know,
that bad dream about going into a large hall to take an exam on a subject
about which you know nothing.
You can never know all there is to know about the capabilities or intentions
of an opposing commander or another country or group. You can never
anticipate all of the questions you will be asked in the future.
The only viable professional response to this situation is to think
continually about the areas in which you work. Seek out sources of
information, and try improved methods for analysis and dissemination. In
short, carry out your professional responsibilities with the same kind of
entrepreneurial drive that characterizes some private enterprises. The stakes
are certainly higher than those associated with an end-of-year balance sheet.
The only constant is change
There is always resistance to change. Of course, we all try to bring
initiative and a creative spirit to our work, but organizations and
individuals do not always welcome or reward change. Make no mistake about it,
making extensive use of the vast array of open information resources is
different from "reading the classified traffic".
We have all sorts of sayings to describe what happens to those who attempt to
try something new or different. Sayings like The early Christians get the
best lions or You can tell the pioneers because they are the ones with the
arrows sticking out describe common attitudes and, unfortunately, experiences.
The changed world situation, the information explosion and shrinking budgets
will not allow the continuation of a business-as-usual approach. One expert
described the current situation by saying:
"The Defense Department is confronted with a phenomena which is encountered
in private business only rarely. For the past forty years the Defense
Department designed its information systems to deal with a single customer.
With the demise of our wholesale customer, we suddenly find ourselves in the
retail business. It is a retail business which is totally unpredictable,
where we don't know where the next customer will come from, and how that
customer has to be served."
New Technology and New Organization
Dissemination of intelligence
The maximum payback from the effective use of information technology may
require changes in the dissemination and organization of intelligence. One
report on intelligence in Desert Shield/Storm stated that:
The inability to reliably disseminate intelligence, particularly
imagery, within the theater was one of the major intelligence failures..
Component headquarters staff often failed to pass available intelligence
downward..
A Marine officer writes:
Much of DESERT SHIELD was spent figuring out how to get multipage
reports out to widely dispersed units. It took extraordinary effort, and
many reports were delivered late...
An Army officer comments:
I believe intelligence products are better "tailored" to that echelon
when it is "produced" by that echelon. Give me information, I'll do my
part to create the intelligence to what I am told the commander wants to
know. While I thoroughly support and encourage talk up and down the MI
ladder, I feel out of the loop if I can't automate my query process.
Without access to national level systems here on my personally owned
computer in my humble Bn S-2 shop, my hands are tied, and I must trudge
up to the SCIF where often the focus is on classified material.
National-level material is great, but (no offense intended) can be too
ethereal for folks at this level.
Report on the results of an Army war game:
The key to Airland Battle Future (ALBF) is the efficient delivery of
information...Current approaches focus on automating existing manual
processes, and linking those processes that have always communicated. ALBF
may require the Army to alter this paradigm.
Push instead of Pull
Planners and research organizations are now beginning to talk about designing
intelligence systems based on the concept of pull rather than push. That is,
instead of producing a wide range of intelligence products and attempting to
distribute (push) them to all possible users, the users themselves will query
collections of information, retrieving (pulling) only what is relevant to
them.
Let's start a restaurant
Some of the deficiencies in intelligence dissemination revealed in Desert
Storm can be illustrated by an example. Suppose that we start a restaurant
run in an unusual manner. As each customer enters, he or she is seated at a
table. The kitchen staff then begins to prepare everything on the menu, and
once prepared, the waiters attempt to deliver every dish.
Of course, we soon learn that some customers are never served and go hungry.
Other customers have more food than they can eat. They sample only a few of
the dishes and often miss the best ones. Much of their food is discarded. The
waiters and kitchen staff are constantly rushed and overworked. There is no
time for the cooks to think about the dishes they prepare so that they might
improve them.
The solution to the problem in our restaurant and perhaps in the distribution
system would be to allow the user to select only the products he really
wants.
Let the customer choose
The techniques employed to select information sources and retrieve relevant
reports and other information are what this manual describes. The shape of
future intelligence systems in not clear at present. However, many of the
techniques and skills presented in this manual will be relevant as new
systems are developed and deployed.
Reorganization of military intelligence is not the topic of this manual.
However, it is important to keep in mind some of the lessons learned in
recent years by U.S. business. As information infrastructures have changed
and information has been widely available throughout the organization,
structural changes followed and the skills and attitudes necessary for
success changed.
Those are the forces which mandate change. They are far more significant than
the usual arguments against change which follow.
Why change anything?
Let's briefly examine some of the arguments against change. You can probably
come up with a few more, but these will illustrate the major sources of
resistance.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
One of the professional rewards in any field is the feeling of competence
derived from an understanding of the tools, practices and skills in that
profession. Change can undermine that feeling. However, complacency can lead
to an inability to function effectively in changed circumstances. Change in
the field of electronic information processing is most accurately described
using terms like explosive, or dramatic. A constant effort to understand the
changing environment is required.
The Army is different
An intelligence professional in military service has a set of
responsibilities and demands different from those of his or her civilian
counterpart.
Physical fitness, mastery of the skills of a soldier, and the development of
leadership skills all take time and make unique demands on the military
professional.
It is also true that the systems and procedures used in the military may have
to function despite the physical and human challenges described as the "fog
of war".
However, the responsibilities accepted by a military professional demand a
constant search for the most effective methods to carry out assigned duties.
Computer illiteracy
Just twenty years ago, only a small group of computer professionals
programmed, designed and operated computers. The microcomputer explosion has
changed that situation dramatically. However, the professional work force has
not been able to change as rapidly.
In a study released in late 1993, more than 100 executives in both the U.S.
and the UK. were asked In your opinion, what percentage of the nation's top
executives is not computer literate?
The respondents believed that 55% of U.S. executives are not computer
literate. How willing will a senior commander who does not understand the
technology be to undertake a new initiative based on that technology?
We'll wait for 'them' to provide the tools
There are efforts within the intelligence community to set standards and
design and implement open source information systems to support the
intelligence process. Some day, these systems will be widely available. But,
as a responsible professional, can you ignore the new technologies until
that day comes?
There are simple, inexpensive ways in which you can begin to explore and
utilize the new information technologies and resources. If you understand
them, then you will be able to evaluate and perhaps shape the community-wide
tools as they are developed.
Strategies to use OSI now
Ready, fire, aim!
Tom Peters is the co-author of the book In Search of Excellence, and the
author of a number of subsequent books. Each deals with the changes in
organizations and attitudes which the current competitive environment demands.
He uses the expression above to describe an essential approach. He suggests
that it is far more useful to try a number of small-scale, quickly deployed
projects than it is to carry out a much larger, more comprehensive project
only after a lengthy study, review and approval process.
Fortunately, very small investments will allow an exploration and evaluation
of new information technologies in the intelligence process. The lessons
learned from such small-scale efforts are invaluable in understanding the
technology and designing answers to real rather than imagined problems.
Go Simple, Go Cheap and Go Now!
Audrey Sutherland is an author and lecturer who has traveled alone for weeks
along the Alaskan coast in a small, inflatable kayak. She did not put off her
travels until some future time when she could purchase the perfect, high tech
equipment. She summarizes her approach by suggesting that you Go Simple, Go
Cheap, and Go Now!
Ignoring new technology is dangerous
By the time of World War I, the technology of the machine gun had been well
developed, but European military leaders had not grasped the effect of this
weapon on tactics. The frontal assault by infantry on enemy defenses was
attempted repeatedly. Consider this account:
"Ferrers was first out from 'B' Company, his monocle in his eye, his sword in
his hand. As the guns stopped firing there was a moment of silence...Almost
at the same moment came another noise, the whip and crack of the enemy
machine guns opening up with deadly effect...As the attack progressed the
German positions which did most damage were two machine gun posts in front of
the Middlesex. Not only did they virtually wipe out the 2nd Middlesex with
frontal fire, but they caused many of the losses in the 2nd Scottish Rifles
with deadly enfilade, or flanking fire."
In short, two German machine guns, a dozen Germans at most, brought to a halt
two battalions of British infantry, about 1500 men.
When historians write about the end of this century, the computer and the
explosion of information resources which it generated may be viewed as having
a revolutionary effect on military operations, perhaps as dramatic as those
caused by the machine gun.
With only a personal computer, a modem and funds for on line and search
charges, you can explore the strengths and weaknesses of open information
sources now.
3. What is Open Source Information (OSI)?
OSI is Open Source Information; that is, intelligence collected from open
sources such as newspapers, television and radio broadcasts, books, reports,
journals, photographs and other images. If is based on information collected
from open sources. It is officially defined as follows:
Open source information for purposes of this directive is publicly available
information (i.e., any member of the public could lawfully obtain the
information by request or observation), as well as other unclassified
information that has limited public distribution or access. Open source
information also includes any information that may be used in an unclassified
context without compromising national security or intelligence sources and
methods. If the information is not publicly available, certain legal
requirements relating to collection, retention, and dissemination may apply.
Of course, these sources have been used in the intelligence production
process in the past. What is different now is a growing recognition that a
more organized and focused effort must be made to take full advantage of open
source materials.
An important subset of open source information is called Gray Literature. It
has been defined by the Interagency Gray Literature Working Group (IGLWG) as
follows:
Gray literature, regardless of media, can include, but is not limited to,
research reports, technical reports, economic reports, trip reports, working
papers, discussion papers, unofficial government documents, proceedings,
preprints, research reports, studies, dissertations and theses, trade
literature, market surveys, and newsletters. This material cuts across
scientifie, political, socio-economic, and military disciplines.
Organizations that typically generate the largest quantities of gray
literature include: research establishments (laboratories and institutes);
national governments; private publishers (pressure groups/political parties);
corporations; trade associations/unions; think tanks; and academia.
The quantity and quality of open sources has increased dramatically. Writing
in 1992, Admiral Studeman, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence reported:
" We have identified some 8,000 commercial data bases - and the vast majority
have potential intelligence value."
The number of worldwide periodicals has grown from 70,000 in 1972 to 116,000
last year.
The explosion of open source information is most apparent in the Commonwealth
of Independent States, where today, there are some 1,700 newspapers that were
not published three years ago.
The sources of 'gray literature', (i.e., private or public symposia
proceedings, and academic studies) around the world are also increasing
dramatically.
... FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service) monitors over 3,500
publications in 55 foreign languages. And each day it collects a half a
million words from its field offices around the world and another half a
million words from independent contractors in the U.S. - that's equivalent to
processing several copies of War and Peace every day.
Will OSI do the whole job?
Dr. Joseph Nye, until recently Chairman of the National Intelligence Council
and now Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs,
has on many occasions used the jig-saw puzzle analogy to describe the
relationship between OSI and the other traditional intelligence disciplines
of human intelligence (HUMINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), and signals
intelligence (SIGINT). In paraphrase, he has noted:
Open source intelligence provides the outer pieces of the jig-saw puzzle,
without which can neither begin nor complete the puzzle. But they are not
sufficient of themselves. The precious inner pieces of the puzzle, often the
most difficult and most expensive to obtain, come from the traditional
intelligence disciplines. Open source intelligence is the critical foundation
for the all-source intelligence product, but it cannot ever replace the
totality of the all-source effort. Even the most ardent enthusiasts claim
that OSI can provide no more than 60%-80% of the total intelligence
requirements. It can provide the overall context in which to view a topic.
It can help to focus the search through classified material.
"Using open sources for orientation purposes, as a preliminary to tasking
classified systems, may be the single smartest thing an operator can learn to
do."
Appendix A to this manual contains a the paper "ACCESS: in the Age of
Information" that describes the role and importance of OSI.
Why OSI now?
The end of the bi-polar world
For almost fifty years, the world was divided into two opposing blocs of
nations centered around the United States and the Soviet Union. The military,
political and nuclear threats posed by the Soviet Union dominated and shaped
the security and intelligence resources of the United States. Intelligence
collection and analysis assets were focused on the greatest perceived threat
to our national security.
The world is very different now. Who would have guessed ten years ago that by
the end of 1993, the U.S. and its coalition partners would have fought and
won a war in the Middle East, placed 30,000 troops in Somalia and have other
forces stationed in Macedonia; or by the end of 1994, have 20,000 troops in
Haiti, and a major deployment of forces to Kuwait?
The challenges now facing the intelligence community are sometimes referred
to as the "Gray Area Phenomena" or GAP.
The GAP are threats to the stability of nation-states by non-state sectors
and non-governmental processes and organizations. The Gray Areas at once
appear to be strikingly new and uncomfortably old.... Just beyond the horizon
of current events lie two possible political futures - both bleak. The first
is a re-tribalization of large swaths of humanity by war and bloodshed ... in
which culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against
tribe. ... The second is being borne by the onrush of technical, economic and
ecological forces that demand increased integration and uniformity. The
planet, it appears, is both falling apart and coming together at the very
same moment.
A pessimistic view of the future tasks facing the intelligence professional
was expressed at a recent conference. The speaker stated that there was no
indication that there would be a fundamental change in human nature and that,
therefore, conflict was inevitable. Secondly, history shows that no
technology has every been stopped from spreading. Efforts at
non-proliferation may slow, but will not stop the spread of technology such
as that needed to produce a nuclear device. Thirdly, as the world shrinks and
becomes a single "Global Village", local conflicts will increasingly become
global in scope.
How can intelligence collection be flexible enough to respond as quickly as
the political or military situation demands? Open source material is
collected and reported continuously around the world. It is current and
readily available.
Speed : An element of national power
In their book War and Anti-War, Alvin and Heidi Toffler describe the changes
which have accompanied the change from Second Wave (industrial) to Third Wave
(information based) economies. One of the characteristics of the Third Wave
is the importance of speed in information flow and decision making.
Writing about Desert Storm, they say
But the issue in battle is not necessarily absolute speed, but speed relative
to the enemy's pace. And here, there was no doubt about the superiority of
the victors
.
And quoting Forbes magazine they say America won the military war...the same
way the Japanese are winning the high-technology trade and manufacturing war
against us: by using a fast-cycle, time-based competitive strategy.
The military consequences of speed are significant.
A brigade in two days is worth a division five months later. And therefore,
precision warfare, precision delivery of violence, precision delivery of
deterrence becomes a currency which requires a different configuration of
information management.
Because open source material is collected continuously on almost every
imaginable subject, it can respond to new and unanticipated requests with no
delay.
Dramatic increase in electronic capabilities
In 1965, a typical small business computer had about 16 KB of internal
memory. Punched cards provided data input and output. A typical disk drive
stored only 7 MB (million characters). Such a machine was usually leased for
about $10,000 per month.
Today, a personal computer (PC) with 20-50 times the capacity of that machine
can be purchased for around $3000. A typical business PC has 8 to 16 MB of
internal random access memory (RAM). A typical disk drive stores over 500 MB
and for about $300 more, 1 GB (gigabyte, or 1 billion bytes) drives are
available.
A modem which sends and receives data over phone lines at a rate of about 100
KB (roughly 50 single-spaced, typed pages) per minute costs less than
$100.00. Newer modems which send and receive at twice this rate are now
available. Compact disk read-only-memory (CD-ROM) drives are becoming a
standard part of most new PC's. A CD-ROM disk holds about 650 MB of text,
images or video.
The tools to collect, store and analyze large quantities of information are
cheap, reliable and readily available.
Industry experts point out that, for more than the last decade, computer
power had doubled every 18 months. They see this trend continuing for at
least the next several years.
Diminished budgets
Both military and intelligence budgets have been reduced since the collapse
of the Soviet Union. The concept of "doing more with less" characterizes the
situation in both the military and civilian intelligence communities. If the
same information can be collected from a foreign newspaper or television
broadcast or from an expensive space-borne sensor, which is the more
cost-effective source?
Open vs. classified sources
If it's really valuable, it must be classified
Classified information, with its access and handling restrictions, appears to
have an authoritative quality, to represent the "real" story. However, that
is not always the case. It may contains subtle biases or omissions just as
does any other source. For example, history has revealed that some past
estimates of Soviet military and economic strength were incorrect.
One commentator describes this preference for classified material as a
psychological problem:
By this I mean the mind-set which stems from the Cold War itself. The secrecy
which surrounded that period has produced in many analysts a belief in
infallibility and a pride in exclusivity. The application of codewords and
security classifications gives an air of accuracy and authority... However,
the conflicts of today do not lend themselves to the old methods of closed
shop analysis. While having breakfast, you hear on the news that a revolution
has broken out in some country. You can't wait to get to work so that you can
go to the SCIF and see what is "really" happening.
Did you ever think that "better" information might be available in open
sources? Perhaps a quick review of newspaper accounts of the last election
in the country or an article on the nature of long-standing ethnic tensions
in the area might provide a far clearer understanding than will a highly
classified report which details the number of rounds of small-arms
ammunition stored in a hidden bunker and the fact that only 57 out of a
possible 64 helicopters in the area are operational.
What is the value of an unclassified report?
Almost 15 years ago, the U.S. Defense Attach in Beijing, China wrote a
letter to a small, Army Reserve detachment thanking it for an unclassified
report which it had produced. The report described the geography of the
Sino-Soviet border and analyzed likely avenues for a Soviet attack on China.
The attach wrote that although he had access to a great deal of classified
material dealing with the same topic, the unclassified report was
particularly useful because he could give it freely to his contacts in the
Peoples' Liberation Army and others. It served as the basis for a number of
useful discussions.
Increasingly, U.S. military forces have operated as members of a coalition of
allied nations. Intelligence information based on open sources is far easier
to share with coalition partners than is that drawn from classified,
sensitive sources. Reports based on OSI can be disseminated to uncleared U.S.
personnel. For example, enlisted soldiers who need to know what is happening
around them.
But I serve in a tactical unit
It is not difficult to make the case that OSI provides useful background for
intelligence professionals working at the national or strategic level.
However, tactical intelligence officers also rely on OSI.
The following comments from an officer at the battalion level in the XVIIIth
Airborne Corps provide an interesting and useful view of how creative
intelligence professionals use OSI. Read the comments which follow carefully.
Although written late at night by a junior officer, they are worthy of
careful study and consideration by all military intelligence professionals.
After you have finished reading them, go back and read them again. In
response to the comment that OSI is a resource of great value to an MI
professional supporting a tactical commander, he responded:
I totally concur. Quite often, my commander sharpshoots me with OSI
he's found. Battalion and Brigade commanders are smarter than the
average bear, tend to be avid readers, and track the news/commentary
shows closely. 2's need to support their 6's proactively with OSI,
perhaps in the following situations:
* daily summaries of contingency or hot areas (I do this during our
DRF-1.[Division Ready Force is the first battalion to be deployed] I
come into the office at 0500, pull up the AP wire and scan it for 18th
ABN Corps top 10 countries. Limiting my total printout for the boss to 2
pages, I highlight key info. If there is an event that seems like it
could be of particular interest, I'll look for an in-depth story on it
from a different source (US News, for example), and have that printout
available.
* weekly summaries of the same for all company commanders in my
battalion. I try to be broad in my scope, but key in on the high points.
This style helps the company commanders tailor the information to the
soldiers in their company. First Sergeants like to have current events
boards for the troops, and this helps them compile intelligence.
During the U.S.'s involvement in Somalia, there was a fair amount of
information available on Aideed and his forces. This helped me paint a
picture for our troops about what they might face if we deployed.
(Particularly helpful, because it was generally a non-Warsaw Pact
"conventional" force.)
I pushed out information I collected on Yugoslavia to the companies
also. One First Sergeant compiled this (essentially a glorified Target
Folder) into a large "Did You Know?" bulletin board.
* OSI supports briefings that I build for Platoon Sergeants and above
within the battalion. Although I will normally add to the unclassified
core of the briefs with classified intel, it helps tremendously to have
an unclassified base to revert to. Normally the IRC (Initial Reaction
Company) within our DRF-1 Bn likes to have briefings for all soldiers
before and during our alert cycle.
* If I had time prior to a deployment to prepare intelligence products
for the troops, I would certainly include Target Folders, Handbooks
(smartbooks), and INTSUMs for the companies. An example of where this
would happen is prior to Sinai rotations, where these products can be
constructed out of sophisticated OSI, without the worry of classified
restrictions. Knowing where to find more OSI than I currently have would
help me with these products. The best part about this is that it would
enable a savvy user at Brigade or below to produce his own products.
I already maintain both a classified contingency "database" supplemented
with unclassified. This supports not only briefings while "standing by",
but production of products upon alert...
Bottom-line: OSI has helped me translate information into intelligence
for infantrymen based on what their leaders have asked me to focus on.
OSI strengths
Coverage
During every hour of every day, people are collecting information for
business, academic, news reporting or research purposes. Much of that
information eventually is printed, broadcast or stored in an electronic
database.
Does the intelligence community care today about the work of a graduate
student in anthropology who has spent the last few years studying the clan
structure in some Third World country? Probably not. But how valuable will
that research be when clan rivalries lead to the seizure of a busload of U.S.
tourists and the dispatch of U.S. forces to attempt to rescue them?
A recent example illustrates the value of OSI. In preparation for the "left
hook" maneuver in Operation Desert Storm, CENTCOM tasked all intelligence
agencies for all information they could get on trafficability through the
wastelands of southern Iraq. CENTCOM needed to know where the sands would be
too soft to support tanks and where defiles would stop vehicles and require
bridging equipment.
A great hunt was launched for data. One very helpful source turned out to be
the Library of Congress. A crew of intelligence officers spent three days
pouring over old archeological manuscripts and found trafficability data.
Archeologists early in this century had recorded minutiae on the countryside
in their diaries as they slowly made their way across the sands on camelback.
Recent events in Somalia and Rwanda demonstrate how quickly a country or area
can become a focus of U.S. and international interest. If U.S. troops are
sent on short notice to an area which in the past has not been a focus of
intelligence collection efforts, what is the best means to provide the
thorough intelligence products which the commander will require?
The intelligence community can neither anticipate nor collect all of the
information which may prove valuable at some point in the future. However, it
is quite likely that the relevant information has been collected and recorded
by someone. An OSI system provides the tools to find that information.
Timeliness
Because coverage of events in the world is continuous, somewhere, there is
usually current information available. If a U.S. trade journal publishes an
article this month on the level of technology in the aircraft industry in
another country, isn't it likely that the information in that article may be
more useful than that contained in a classified study done by a contract
research organization five years ago?
Differing points of view
OSI sources are extremely diverse. Reports and articles on a situation may be
produced by both sides in a dispute. A government may inflate figures to
indicate great success for its programs. Opposition factions may bias their
analyses of the same programs to support their own political or social
agenda.
An intelligence analyst must be able to judge the relative value of reports
on the same topic or event emanating from different sources. The contrasts
and discrepancies between several different accounts may be just as valuable
as the actual reports themselves.
The value of an open forum
By definition, OSI material is not classified, It can, therefore, be
subjected to analyses and comments by a very wide range of experts and
commentators.
During W.W.II, the U.S. mounted a secret effort to designed to collect
thousands of bats from caves in the southwestern United States. The bats were
to be fitted with small incendiary devices, and released over Japan to cause
thousands of fires.
After some planning and numerous discussions, a small team was dispatched to
collect bats. Unfortunately, the bats were unwilling to participate in the
war effort and proved impossible to collect in any numbers. The project was
dropped.
What do you think would have been the results of that initial idea if
elements of the idea had been subjected to a broad review by researchers who
studied bats, "spelunkers" who had explored caves containing bats, and other
knowledgeable commentators? Probably, the bats would never have been
disturbed in the first place.
Possible government/private partnerships
Virtually all open source material is collected by private industry, the news
media and academic institutions. Private organizations index court decisions,
newspaper and journal articles and other material and sell access for a fee.
If the interests of the intelligence community and of private industry are
identical, then it may be possible to contract for at least some of the
information services required. There are currently efforts in progress to
define standards for the storage and retrieval of open source information.
OSI weaknesses
Volume
Every day, thousands of newspapers, research reports, books, magazines, radio
and TV broadcasts and other documents are produced. They contain valuable
information, but, clearly, very powerful tools are required to store, index
and retrieve useful information from this enormous quantity of facts,
opinions and rumors. A later section of this handbook describes some of the
available tools.
Diversity
The formats, packaging, language and type of information produced each day
range from a single typewritten sheet of paper containing the conclusions of
a research study to 150 cassettes of video tapes containing the results of a
scientific symposium conducted entirely in a language other than English.
Without a standard format for this information, it is almost impossible to
retrieve useful information from it.
Initiatives have been presented to create a National Open Source Architecture
which would allow access to vast collections of open source material by
business, government, military and civilian researchers.
Analysis required
As mentioned above, the sheer volume and variety of the information available
in open sources demand skill on the part of the analyst to evaluate the
quality and accuracy of a given document or report.
Clearly, the agricultural production figures published by a government might
be quite different from the figures published as part of a research project
by a U.S. graduate student who lived in the countryside in a peasant village
for several years. Which is to be believed?
The Bottom Line
OSI expert Robert Steele quotes a Navy officer who told him that if it's 85%
accurate, on time, and I can share it, then that is a lot more useful to me
than a compendium of Top Secret Codeword information that is too much, too
late, and requires a safe and three security officers to move it around the
battlefield.
The current state of OSI in the intelligence community
Problems
Although there is a growing recognition within the intelligence community
that more attention and resources should be devoted to developing open
sources, the effort to manage and exploit these sources remains fragmented
and overlapping.
There exists no single mechanism to task open sources and to specify
requirements. The existing culture and systems within the intelligence
community often make it far easier to task a classified source than an open
one.
Also, there is no common information architecture within which open source
material is stored and accessed. Until this has been developed and put in
place, it will be difficult to make full use of the technology.
Initiatives
The growing recognition of the importance of OSI was indicated by the
appointment in 1992 of Mr. Paul Wallner as the Director of Central
Intelligence's (DCI's) Open Source Coordinator, and the subsequent
appointment, in 1994, of Dr. Joseph Markowitz as the Director of a
much-expanded Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO). Outside the
intelligence community, under the leadership of the Administrator of the
Defense Technical Information Center (Mr. Kurt Molholm), there has existed
since 1988 a semi-official consortium called CENDI which brings together the
managers of the major scientific and technical information (S&TI) collection
programs.
COSPO has announced that the community now spends 1% of its budget on open
source collection and processing, and that its objective is to increase this
amount to 2% of the budget. Some outside observers, however, have expressed
the view that this effort, while worthy, will not lead to a fundamental
restructuring of the entire intelligence community, and may remain marginal
for many years to come.
In 1992 and 1993, conferences have been held in Washington, D.C. to bring
together those experts working to improve the use of OSI.
The most recent conference held in November, 1993 was entitled National
Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions. A number of
papers were presented by representatives of private industry, the academic
world and government all dealing with various aspects of OSI. The proceedings
of these conferences as well as information on future conferences is
available from the organizer.
As the title of the conference indicates, the problem of organizing and
focusing OSI products is not only of interest to the intelligence community.
It is also a key component of national power and competitiveness in the
Information Age.
Over time, a realignment of funding and new organizational relationships
between intelligence community agencies and private sector OSI providers
should emerge. Commanders rather than intelligence professionals will
determine when OSI is not "good enough". Improved electronic connectivity
between the community and the private sector will ultimately create a
"virtual intelligence community" far more capable and responsive to the needs
of the policy maker and commander than the existing kaleidoscope of
intelligence, investigative, and information capabilities.
OSI is coming back into its own as the foundation for all-source
intelligence. The intelligence community that evolved through the Cold War is
in the process of a radical make-over. It is OSI that will tide the commander
over when dealing with Somalia, Rwanda, and other Third World contingencies
for which the traditional intelligence community is not well trained,
equipped, or organized. Ultimately, however, OSI is but the beginning, for
nothing is ever what it appears, and spies are still needed.
4. How to be a knowledgeable information consumer in the electronic age
Read
In a presentation dealing with the use of electronically stored and retrieved
information, you may wonder why it is important to mention reading. Quite
simply, it remains the best and most efficient way to keep current in a
rapidly changing field.
General Maxwell Taylor served in the U.S. Army in a variety of positions
including commander of the 101st Airborne Division in W.W.II, Army Chief of
Staff and military advisor to President Kennedy. A staff member noted that
whenever he traveled, General Taylor always read. Most of his staff passed
the time chatting, sleeping or playing cards, but General Taylor read.
In most assignments, it will be an atypical day when you have a chance to
share ideas with an expert in your field. However, you can do that daily if
you read and think about what those experts have written in their books and
articles.
Electronic information - the basics
Information Storage
How is information stored electronically?
Information can be stored in a number of different ways. A tape recording of
a lecture, a word processing file on a computer diskette and a video tape all
contain information. However, the information in these different formats
differs in the ease with which it can be searched.
Suppose you were taken into a room containing 5000 cassette tapes and told
that somewhere on one of those tapes was some important information. Given a
tape player and a very large amount of time and patience, you would probably
find what you were looking for, but it would be neither cheap nor quick. By
contrast, documents stored digitally in a computer can be indexed and
searched very rapidly.
Multimedia or unimedia
The digital revolution - not multimedia but "unimedia"
Recent ads for personal computers often feature the term multimedia. This
indicates that the computer can reproduce sound and graphics. If your
computer has multimedia capabilities, you will be able to hear the phaser
fire when you battle the Klingons. Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT Media Lab
points out that this term is misleading. Current technology is not leading us
towards multiple means of storing information, but rather towards a single
way. All forms of information; text, sound and images, can all be stored
digitally.
Digital information storage basically reduces each of these forms of
information to a series of numbers which can then be stored, searched and
reproduced by a computer.
The challenge for the intelligence professional seeking to exploit open
source information resources is to understand the types of information
available, and how they can be accessed and searched.
How is electronic information accessed?
On-line systems - basic concepts
Because large databases are expensive to collect and store, they are often
housed in a centralized, powerful computer system which users access over
telephone lines. A brief description of the mechanics of accessing a remote
computer is useful because it is the means used to access many open source
databases.
The host computer
On the other end of the telephone line from your terminal is the host
computer. This is usually a large minicomputer or a mainframe system with
vast amounts of on-line storage and software which allows a large number of
users to access stored information simultaneously.
Host computer software provides access control, for example requiring the
use of a user id and password to gain access. The software may also collect
the information required to charge for access time.
Who provides on-line databases?
Commercial systems
Information has a commercial value. We all understand that when we purchase a
newspaper. A number of years ago, businesses which produce information began
to store collections of that information on computers and charge for access.
For example, in the 1970's, the New York Times began a project which included
storing every issue of the paper in computer format. Subsequently, other
major newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the
Christian Science Monitor were added. This data base, which is constantly
being updated, is now made available by a company called Mead Data Central as
part of the LEXIS/NEXIS service.
Distributors
Many organizations produce commercially valuable data, but do not wish to get
into the business of providing computer access to it. The DIALOG system,
operated by a division of Lockheed, is a service which provides access to
hundreds of databases ranging from information on chemical compounds to
financial information and news. By having access to the DIALOG system, a user
can access information in any of the databases which it provides.
Organizational databases
Many large corporations and government agencies operate on-line databases.
For example, more than 25 years ago, IBM ran an internal system called
ITIRC (IBM Technical Information Retrieval Center). The system was accessible
from any IBM location. It contained all IBM manuals and publications,
internal documents and reports and articles from the news media and journals
which dealt with various aspects of the computer field. Similar systems have
been in use in government agencies and the intelligence community for a
number of years.
What kind of information is provided?
Most of the on-line information available today is text, that is words rather
than images. A later section in this handbook describes how textual
information is searched and retrieved. However, at this point, it is
important to understand that the results of accessing an on-line database
will be textual material, that is, documents. When the desired documents have
been transmitted to your local terminal, they may be read on the display,
stored for later use or printed.
Some on-line services also provide images, such as those taken from
satellites. A number of commercial services provide weather maps, satellite
imagery and maps. At high resolution (fine detail) the files containing these
images can be too large for practical transmission over standard telephone
lines.
How do you get access?
Commercial services typically have a sign-up or enrollment process. You
provide information which will allow the service to bill you for access. The
service provides you with telephone numbers and a user code.
These services also provide instructional material or classes to help you
make efficient use of the service. If charges for a service are determined by
the amount of time you are connected as well as the number of documents you
retrieve, unstructured browsing can be very expensive.
What does it cost?
Before discussing typical costs, it is important to discuss the cost question
more generally. In an organization, like the U.S. Army or any other large
organization, the really important question is not How much does it cost? but
rather How much does it cost me or my department?
Several years ago, the Army sponsored an on-line system which provided a
number of conferences on which users with a common interest could exchange
opinions and information.
Many of the conferences had useful exchanges of information. Then, a charge
system was introduced which charged each user activity for time used. The
network lost users and shut down in a few months.
The point is, while it may be very cost effective for the intelligence
community as a whole to use OSI, the way in which individual activities are
charged will be a critical issue.
5. Accessing OSI Sources
Open source intelligence comes in many forms. The diagram above depicts some
of them. This chapter will describe the various types of information
resources and providers.
The library
Explore the sources
A visit to a research library is a useful place to start understanding what
is available in open source material. Often, hundreds of newspapers and
periodicals are available for browsing. In a very short time, you will be
able to identify those which contain information of interest.
The librarian
A short discussion with a capable professional librarian can be an extremely
valuable investment of time. Librarians are trained to locate and retrieve
information. In recent years, schools of library science have placed heavy
emphasis on teaching the techniques of on-line searching. Many libraries have
access to one or more on-line databases and are familiar with their contents.
Books, Journals and Newspapers
In most libraries, periodicals and newspapers from a wide variety of sources
are available. You can very quickly scan these sources to see which ones seem
to have material which covers your area of interest.
The major American newspapers include The New York Times, The Los Angeles
Times, The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor. Other major,
reliable English-language papers include The Manchester Guardian, The Times
of London, The Jerusalem Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail and the Straits
Times of Singapore. These newspapers all contain useful coverage of both
local and world news.
Scores of journals contains articles dealing with technical, military,
historical, economic and social issues. Among the best known are Foreign
Policy, The Far Eastern Economic Review, and numerous other publications.
After you have determined which publications often contain articles of
interest to you, you can then determine what electronic sources provide
access to them.
On-line access
Many research libraries have access to on-line information sources, such as
DIALOG. The librarians are often skilled not only in using these resources,
but in knowing which ones are most relevant for finding information on a
particular topic.
Private Intelligence Providers
There are hundreds of skilled information brokers world-wide, most of whom
speak English and are familiar with specialty databases as well as special
libraries maintained by universities and corporations. The Burwell Directory
of Information Brokers (Burwell Enterprises, Dallas, TX) is an annual
directory which also indexes all brokers according to their specific areas of
expertise (e.g. transportation, fuel ), their range of database access, and,
new in their 1994 directory, their mastery of foreign languages and foreign
databases. It is now possible, through this directory, to identify a skilled
information broker who speaks Tamil or Urdu, and is familiar with databases
in countries where those languages are spoken.
Oxford Analytica
This firm provides several information products. One is the Oxford Analytica
Daily Brief which is modelled on the daily briefings provided to senior
government leaders around the world. Drawing on the expertise and experience
of more than 500 scholars at Oxford and other universities, brief analytical
commentaries on current and likely future events are prepared daily. These
commentaries are then faxed or made available on-line to subscribers to the
service.
Jane's
Jane's was founded by John Frederick Thomas Jane who was born in 1865. As a
child, he was fascinated by naval vessels. As a teenager, he started a
sketchbook of warships which he called "Ironclads of the World". In 1898,
his authoritative guide Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships was published.
The company continues today to provide authoritative guides to military and
commercial equipment and facilities worldwide.
All of the guides listed below are available in both printed form and on
CD-ROM's. Jane's Fighting Ships contains data on more than 8,000 warships.
Jane's Armour & Artillery is the world's only annual survey of armored
fighting vehicles. Jane's Security & Counter-Insurgency Equipment provide
information on more than 2,000 products from over 500 manufacturers. Jane's
Battlefield Surveillance Systems contains details on all ground and
air-based tracking systems in service. Other products describe ports and
airports, railways and urban transportation systems. In addition, Jane's
also publishes a number of periodicals.
Local Personal Computer(PC)
The basic components of a PC are familiar to most readers. A central
processing unit (CPU) executes program instructions. Programs and some data
are stored in random access memory (RAM) while the computer is working. A
keyboard is used to enter data and commands and a display presents
information. Programs and data are stored magnetically on a disk or on
diskettes.
The CD-ROM drive
Many current PC's are equipped with a CD-ROM (compact disk read-only memory)
disk drive. Each CD-ROM disk contains up to 650 MB of text, sounds and
images. Encyclopedias, mapping programs, collections of books, newspaper
articles and pictures are all available on CD-ROM's. Unlike on-line services
which charge for each access, a CD-ROM can be used without additional costs
beyond the initial purchase price. CD-ROM's can be used to build an enormous,
compact, readily-available reference library.
Let us now examine the additional components needed to access remote
information sources.
The Telephone LIne
Although the U.S. telephone system is converting to a digital network, at
present, most of the system is designed to transmit sound, i.e. voice
conversations. Computer information is typically stored in digital form.
Therefore, at both ends of the communication link, a device called a modem
(modulator/demodulator) is required. Simply put, its function is the change
digital information into noises which are then transmitted on the phone
system to a receiving modem where the process is reversed.
A telephone connection, often dedicated to computer use, is necessary to
access remote information services. Typical PC modems are designed to connect
to a standard telephone wall jack. These connectors are called RJ-11 by the
telephone industry.
Modem Basics
The function of the modem, as stated above, is to change strings of digital
numbers into noises on one end of the communications link and to reverse the
process on the other end. The speed of data transmissions are typically
measured in thousands of bits per second or KB. Current modems transmit data
at a nominal rate of 14.4 KB. A newly-accepted international standard will
double that rate.
How long will it take to send or receive that document? An example will show
why it is useful to know something about data transmission rates. A typical
page of single-spaced typewritten text contains about 2000 characters. Each
character requires about 10 bits for transmission.
Therefore, if we have a 100-page document it will contain about 200,000
characters, (100 pages x 2,000 characters/page). After adding some overhead
for error checking, a 14.4 KB modem can transmit or receive about 100,000
characters per minute and it will take about 2 minutes to transmit our sample
document. These times can be dramatically reduced using various forms of data
compression which modern modems often employ automatically. But what about
pictures? The size of a digitally stored image depends on the level of
detail, amount of color and other factors. However, a detailed image of a
photograph can be several million characters (megabytes, MB) in size. A video
image with motion, like a movie clip, may be even larger. Standard modems
will take about 10 minutes to transmit a megabyte of information. Again,
various types of compression can dramatically reduce these times.
Software
Communications Software
On a PC, communications software, such as Procomm transmits your keystrokes
to the remote system and displays the responses which are returned.
The software also performs error checking to make sure that information sent
on a noisy telephone line is correct. It may also allow you to store
information received from a remote system on a local disk for later use.
Programs like Procomm provide "terminal emulation". That is, they make a PC
"look" like some standard terminal widely supported by host computer
software.
Increasingly, communications programs are available which work together with
the remote system to simplify and speed communication with the remote
software. For example, the on-line service America Online(AOL) provides each
subscriber with a communications program designed to work with AOL's main
computers. Compuserve offers similar programs. Even the Internet now is
accessible using Mosaic, a communications program which presents a simple
user interface and communicates with the Internet.
Indexing/Retrieval Software
The documents retrieved from on-line searches are stored on the PC's local
hard disk. To make full use of this information, it is important to be able
to search these documents quickly.
A number of inexpensive (less than $500 retail price) programs are available
which are designed to allow rapid searching of collections of documents
stored on personal computers.
These programs generally employ one of two basic approaches to searching
information on a computer. The simplest programs work like the search
functions in a word processor. They scan each document looking for
user-specified key words. These programs are very inexpensive (less than
$50.00 retail price) but are slow when searching a large collection of
documents.
More powerful programs begin by building an index containing a reference to
every word in every document. New documents are added to the index when added
to the database. Searches on an indexed database may require less than a few
seconds even when thousands of documents are searched. These programs can be
used to index locally generated correspondence and reports, documents
retrieved from on-line systems and electronic mail messages.
On line Information Services
The services described below represent major offerings designed for both
consumers and businesses. More specialized and extensive databases are
offered by other vendors. Each has its own access arrangements, pricing
schedule and support services. Many of these services are listed in an
appendix to this manual. The two services described below are used as
examples of what is available and how it is accessed.
America Online(AOL)
AOL provides a communication program at no charge. Using the program, you can
connect to AOL, register and explore the offerings for several hours before
charges begin. Among the many services available on AOL are U.S. News & World
Report, major newspapers and access to the Internet. The graphic interface
provided by the AOL program makes access and navigation simple. Costs depend
on the amount of usage but typically range in the $10-20/month range for
daily usage.
Compuserve Information Service (CIS)
CIS is one of the oldest commercial on-line services. It contains hundreds of
separate conferences dealing with almost every topic from cooking to current
events. Of most interest from an OSI point of view are the several wire
services and collections of journal articles available for searching.
(User enters numbers of articles to be downloaded)
Select and Download
Last page, enter choice !7,8,12,22,26,34,36,41,42,56,57,72
Executive News Svc.($)
(Now, first story, from the Washington Post, is downloaded to local computer
and stored on the local hard disk.)
WP 09/07 GIs Finding Friends Among Former Foes;`No ...
GIs Finding Friends Among Former Foes;`No Secrets' in Maneuvers With
Russians
By Fred Hiatt
Washington Post Foreign Service
TOTSKOYE TRAINING GROUND, Russia, Sept. 6 - The Russian officer
approached the checkpoint after nightfall. By the rules of the joint
U.S.-Russian military training exercise taking place here, he should
Moscow.
Opposition in the parliament... (rest of story not shown)
(Other articles are downloaded..)
Log Off
Enter choice ! bye User enters command to end the session and log off
Thank you for using CompuServe!
Off at 11:18 EDT 7-Sep-94
Carrier was lost!
CIS also provides a service called the Executive News Service (ENS). This
service allows you to setup an profile describing wire service articles in
which you are interested. For example, you might specify a profile containing
the search terms "(Soviet or Russian) and (armor or tank)". You then select
the wire services you wish to scan, for example, the Associated Press,
Reuters and the Washington Post.
As new stories come across the wire services, those which contain the search
terms you have entered are marked. The next time you connect to CIS and look
in the ENS area, you will get a message stating how many stories are waiting
you review.
After scanning the selected stories, you can download those of interest to
your local PC for reading, indexing and later retrieval locally.
Log On
ATDT862-1575 Communications software dials local CIS access number
CONNECT 2400/REL-MNP Modems connect at 2400 bits/second
LOGIN is starting... (User ID and password entered by the communications software)
CompuServe Information Service
11:06 EDT Wednesday 07-Sep-94 P
(Executive Option)
Last access: 11:01 07-Sep-94 CIS keeps track of the last time you accessed the service.
Copyright © 1994
CompuServe Incorporated
All Rights Reserved
OK CIS ready for input
Select a Section or Database
go ens User command to go to the Executive News Service
You have left basic services Notification of a higher rate structure
One moment please...
Executive News Svc.($)
1 Introduction to ENS
2 Review Current News
3 Search by Ticker
4 Create/Change/Delete a Personal Folder (E)
5 Review folder RUSSIA (121 stories) Articles in personal folder
6 Review BOSNIA News Clips (53 stories)
Enter choice !5 User select menu option 5 - Review folder
Executive News Svc.($)
121 stories selected
1 Scan by story titles
2 Scan by story leads
3 Read all stories
Last page, enter choice !1 User selects Scan by Titles
Executive News Svc.($)
List of 121 selected stories
Browse Documents (First screen of article titles is displayed.)
1 APn 09/07 0955 Gulf-Navy
2 APn 09/07 0920 Russia-US
3 RTw 09/07 0825 Russian, German firms to set up space venture
4 RTw 09/07 0722 Bosnia contact group starts second day of talks
5 RTw 09/07 0602 Lifting U.N. arms embargo would be disaster - Rose
6 UPn 09/07 0526 Russia to repay S. Korean loans in kind
7 WP 09/07 GIs Finding Friends Among Former Foes;`No ...
8 RTw 09/07 0102 Japan military seeking own spy satellites
9 RTw 09/07 0059 Japan military seeking own spy satellites
10 RTw 09/06 1449 Sarajevans disappointed as Pope calls off visit
Enter choice or <CR> for more ! User requests next screen
(user scans remaining stories, noting numbers of interesting articles...)
121 APn 08/31 1243 Russia-Radioactive-Theft
A Typical On-line Session
Shown below is the actual transcript of a session on CIS. Comments are shown
to the right in italics.
Using the capabilities shown above, you could scan all the major wire
services each day in just a few minutes. The stories which you downloaded to
your local hard disk would be indexed using one of the indexing programs
described above. In a short period of time, you will build a database of
thousands of pages of information about the topics in which you are
interested.
While the transcript show above was from CIS, the interaction with other
on-line services will be similar.
Weather Maps
CIS also offers various types of weather maps and forecasts. These primarily
provide coverage of the U.S. However, some satellite coverage of weather in
the rest of the world is also available.
The detail level in this map is quite low, but temperatures and storm
activity for Northeast Asia are displayed quite clearly. These maps are
available for most areas of the world and can be downloaded and printed in
just a few minutes. Other sources of weather information include the Air
Force Global Weather Central Dial-In Subsystem (AFGWC). The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides on-line access to 15 different
charts showing ocean current speed and direction, sea surface temperatures
and other ocean data.
Open Source Service Agent (OSSA)
OSSA is an on-line service sponsored as a project by COSPO at the National
Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). It is described as a Gateway to the World of
Open Sources. The prototype system went on-line on 1 October 1994. OSSA
provides the user with access to a storefront with access to electronic
bulletin boards, electronic mail, file transfer mechanisms and gateways to
the open source requirements systems and open source databases.
One component of the system is the Database Recommendation System (DBRS).
Based on user-defined parameters like subject or region of interest, a list
of recommended libraries which are likely to have the information needed is
produced.
A Gray Literature Online Catalog (GLOC) is also available. Again, based on
user interests, a recommended list of resources is produced. To assist
information retrieval from a selected source, a variety of information
retrieval mechanisms are provided. These include direct connections to
government databases as well as single query, Internet database searches via
WAIS, and the NAIC Library Automation System for commercial and some
government databases. An On-line Machine Translation facility is also
available to translate small segments of foreign language text to English in
seconds. This is particularly useful for translating short titles or
abstracts to determine if the full text translated later.A Tool
Recommendation System (TRS) is also provided which includes an on-line
catalog of software that is in use or currently under development within the
government. Also, OSSA provides on-line access to a variety of analysis
software ranging from personal data management to linkage and relational
analysis packages.
Further information on OSSA is available from the National Air Intelligence
Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
The Internet
What is it?
The Internet is often mentioned in discussions of the Information
Superhighway, the proposal to create a widely available means to access
global information resources. The two terms, however, are not synonomous. A
recent poll indicated that 66% of the U.S. population had never heard of the
Information Superhighway. The percentage who believe that the Information
Superhighway is a pretty good or excellent idea is 61%. However, the
percentage who understand what the Information Superhighway is, is only 17%.
The Internet grew out of early work by the Defense Department to build a
distributed network of computers which could continue to function even if
some nodes were damaged or destroyed. Parts of the Internet, the so-called
backbone are currently funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Internet basically consists of an agreement by all participants to use a
standard format when transmitting information. Any system on the network can
determine the destination of a message from information stored in the header
of the message
.
How big is it?
What makes the Internet interesting from an OSI point of view is its size. An
estimated 20 million users in thousands of universities, research
establishments, governments and businesses around the world are connected
through the Internet. Thousands of new users gain access each month. Research
libraries and experts in almost every imaginable field communicate on the
Internet.
Internet weaknesses
The Internet currently has several weaknesses. One is that it has no
security. Any message can potentially be read by some other user. That means
that even business messages or information which is not classified in the
defense meaning of that term may not be suitable for transmission on the
Internet.
A second weakness is that using the Internet effectively can be a rather
difficult process. However, several new programs, such as Mosaic, are coming
on the market. These programs provide a user-friendly front end to the
resources of the Internet.
Capacity limitations are becoming an increasing problem as the number of
users continues to increase. The increasing use of programs such as Mosaic
accelerate the increases in Internet usage.
What is available on the Internet?
The answer to that question is basically, almost anything you can imagine.
For example, each month, an Internet user at the University of California
posts an Internet quiz which can be read by any interested user. The quiz
poses several questions and indicates a time limit for the submission of
answers which must be found by searching resources available on the Internet.
Recent questions have included: In 1990, how may students were living in
dormitories in Ann Arbor, Michigan? When is the next scheduled launch of the
Space Shuttle and what is its mission?. A typical quiz consists of 8-10
questions and usually several individuals or teams are able to successfully
answer all of them within the allotted time.
Newsgroups
Internet newsgroups are a particularly useful part of the Internet. These are
conferences (more than 3,000 at last count) which deal with almost any
imaginable topic. Some are filled with messages exchanging trivial banter
about Monty Python or Madonna. Others discuss oriental cooking or nuclear
physics or military science.. Some are moderated. That means that all
exchanges are reviewed by a moderator who rejects trivial or off-topic
submissions.
One interesting and useful newsgroup is SCI.MILITARY. A typical message
exchange might involve an incident in which an aircraft had been shot down in
some part of the world. One participant would submit a message asking what
sort of missile system was responsible for the shoot-down. The answer might
come from someone who studied the industrial capabilities of the country or
knew exactly what systems they had. In most cases, the information provided
is very authoritative.
Internet databases.
In addition to the newsgroups, there are hundreds of databases available on
the Internet. For example, at the University of New Mexico, there is a
database of news items and commercial information on Latin America. Each day,
newspapers and news broadcasts are translated and analyzed by people
knowledgeable in the area. These are then entered into the database. Another
database is available which contains information on arms control. Some of
these databases have no charge for government use or very low charges.
Trends
The Internet continues to grow at a very rapid rate. Commercial vendors are
bringing programs to market which simplify the use of the Internet. A program
called Mosaic provides a graphical "point and shoot" interface. Until quite
recently, the Internet was used principally by university and research
institutions. Now, however, more and more commercial organizations are
beginning to explore the use of the Internet for commercial purposes. A
number of newspapers are now placing all of their printed material on the
Internet. As an example, a long-established paper, The News & Observers
published in Raleigh, NC has embarked on an ambitious program to provide
Internet access, the entire paper on-line, electronic mail and other services
to subscribers at a cost of about $20.00 per month. Their service, called
NandO.net also provides Internet access and other services to North Carolina
schools. The revenue to support these services comes mostly from advertising
sold to local businesses. Innovative use of the medium results in advertising
much different from the passive ads seen in magazines and television. A local
computer store advertisement, for example, provides a program which asks
questions about computer use and then produces a recommended configuration of
hardware and software complete with prices.
The Globalink company in Fairfax, VA has recently begun offering a
translation service on the Internet called the Message Translation Service
(MTS). The service allows registered users to send messages and text files
on the Internet and rapidly receive draft translations of their documents
from English into Spanish, French, or German, or vice versa. The service is
available 24 hours a day and cost is 5 cents per word with a $5.00 minimum
charge.
A Cambridge, Massachusetts company named Individual has begun offering a new
product called First for Mosaic. This product allows a user to define an
interest profile which is then used to scan more than 400 different news
sources each day. Users can then browse the titles of articles selected,
reading those of most interest. The price of the service depends on the
number of news sources to be scanned.
6. Databases
Commercial services
DIALOG and LEXIS/NEXIS
Commercial systems such as DIALOG and LEXIS/NEXIS and scores of others
typically charge both for connect time and for each search and document
retrieved. An active session which retrieves 20-30 documents can easily cost
several hundred dollars.Each database offered by DIALOG has charges set by
the provider of the database. For some very specialized and valuable
databases, the costs may be several hundred dollars for even a short session.
Compuserve, Delphi, American on Line
Less specialized commercial services such as CompuServe offer access to many
of the same databases provided by DIALOG at a slightly lower cost. Basic
CompuServe membership is $8.95 per month. Searching newspaper archives runs
about $25 per hour. CompuServe offers selective dissemination of information
(SDI) as part of their Executive New Service. This service allows a user to
specify an interest profile by indicating some key words. Then the
information sources to be scanned are specified. The service will then mark
each news item which contains the specified key words for review. Any of
these can then be copied to your terminal.
An SDI example
Several years ago, an SDI profile was set up on CompuServe which used the
key words Russian or Soviet and military or army. The system was instructed
to scan every article from the Washington Post, and the Reuters and UPI news
services. Approximately 200 articles a week have been marked by the system
for review. A total database of about 2000-3000 pages has been created on the
receiving terminal by downloading selected articles. The total cost to scan
and download these articles has been less than $1000.
Additional providers of on-line databases are listed in Appendix C.
Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)
The BBS world
According to Jack Rickard, editor and publisher of Boardwatch magazine, there
are 57,000 BBS (bulletin board systems) in the U.S. counting only those that
welcome calls from strangers. That number doubles every 18 months. In North
America, an estimated 15 million people use BBS systems. As a group, BBS
users tend to be frugal, sending short messages, and using off-line readers
to minimize costs. A typical BBS is a PC with a large hard disk and a dozen
modems is owned or managed by a person called a sysop or systems operator. On
average, each sysop has 300 customers. Paid BBS subscriptions average
$45.00/year. Like rock musicians, 300-400 sysops make a great deal of money;
another 5000-6000 make a small profit after expenses. The major change in the
BBS world now is to offer full Internet access to BBS users. Many BBS systems
now offer the ability to exchange messages with Internet news groups.
Increasingly, full access is being provided to the Internet to allow file
transfer and searching.
Focused and Specialized BBS Systems
Setting up and administering a BBS system is quick and inexpensive. Many
organizations use BBS systems to allow public access to information. For
example, a company may provide technical support for its products on a BBS.
Government agencies post the text of legislation and regulations on BBS
systems so that interested parties may read and comment on it. These systems
also offer a forum for discussions between interested individuals and
organizations. Perhaps the quickest way to get a feeling for the scope and
variety of information available on BBS systems is to scan Appendix A in this
manual. The multi-page listing there describes some of the BBS systems
operated by various departments and agencies of the U.S. government.
7.The retrieval process
The retrieval process
The most complete and accurate database in the world is of no use if it
cannot be searched quickly and simply. How would you like to do research in a
major library if there were no catalog available? To understand the basic
concepts of searching a database, it is important first to understand some
basic facts about human communication.
How do humans communicate?
When two people communicate, the process is simplified because of the
enormous amount of shared experience both parties have just by virtue of
being human. For example, if you say to a fellow worker, "This office is a
pig pen, police it up before the close of business today!", what will happen?
Would you expect to return in the morning and find the telephone, computers,
maps on the wall and the safes all discarded in the trash? No, the meaning
of what you requested is understood by another human being.
How do you talk to a computer?
Computers do not understand meaning. Computers have no "common sense". Their
circuits are made from silicon, basically sand. They have no experiences in
common with human beings. So, how can we ask a computer to search a huge body
of information to extract items useful to us?
Keywords and phrases
In some databases, all material is categorized when entered, often by the use
of keywords as descriptors. For example, a newspaper article describing a
training exercise by Soviet naval infantry might have keywords such as
"Soviet","naval","military" and "exercise". The value of assigning keywords
when a document is added to the database is that it makes later searches
faster. If the indexer entering the article knows the subject material, the
additional keyword "marine" might also be entered. In the U.S. military, we
do not use the term "naval infantry" as the usual descriptor for U.S. Marine
Corps forces. A limitation in using keywords arises, often, with the passage
of time. It may be that at the time of the exercise mentioned above, it
seemed of interest only as a routine exercise. Later events may reveal that
the exercise was conducted by key cadre designated to form a new type of unit
for special operations. Now, different aspects of the account are of
interest. It may also be too expensive to analyze and assign keywords to the
thousands of articles and reports produced by the world's news services,
journals, government agencies, businesses and research organizations.
Full text indexing
The usual solution to this problem is to use "full text indexing". In these
systems, the computer builds an index which contains a reference to every
word in every document. A list of 30-35 "stop words" such as "of, but, the,
and", is excluded from indexing. In a system indexed using a full text index,
a document can be retrieved using any word appearing anywhere in the
document
.
Is one search word enough?
Searches using only a single word, however, are usually not very useful.
Suppose that you wished to search a very large document database for
information on the use of land mine warfare in Cambodia. A search on "mine"
would select documents dealing with coal and iron mining, lost treasure found
in an old gold mine and references to a Valentine's Day message "Be forever
mine". Not too useful.
Enter George Boole
Several techniques are employed to solve this problem. One is the use of
Boolean logic. Boolean logic takes its name from George Boole, a British
logician who lived in the nineteenth century. Boolean logic deals with
logical, that is true/false or yes/no values. The "connectors" in Boolean
logic are "and", "or" and "not". So, you can query a database by asking for a
list of all documents which contain the words "Soviet" AND "naval" AND
"exercise" AND "winter". Only those documents which contain all of those
words will be selected. Another search might be for documents which contain
the words ("MILITARY" OR "ARMY") AND ("POLAR" OR "ARCTIC") AND ("RADIO" OR
"COMMUNICATIONS"). In this search, we have specified words which have similar
meanings which are connected with "OR". These phrases are then connected
with "AND".
Synonyms
In some systems, you can define lists of synonyms to be used in searching.
This provides at least a limited means to define a concept. For example, you
might define the following words as synonyms: "Abrams", "M1A1", "armor",
"armour", "T72", "Leopard", "Chieftain", and "MBT". Then, when you searched
for any of these words, articles containing any of the other words would also
be selected.
What about endings?
Most searching systems will also allow you to leave off suffixes. The
notation varies, but often the $ character indicates that you want all
suffixes. For example, the search term "COMPUT$" would retrieve documents
containing the words "COMPUTER","COMPUTING", "COMPUTATIONAL" and "COMPUTE".
Its in the same neighborhood
"Proximity" searching is also provided in some systems as an aid to
retrieving documents containing references to a phrase. For example, you can
ask for all documents containing the word "armed" within three words of
"gangs". This request would retrieve documents containing the phrases,
"..gangs which are armed with machetes...", "...armed gangs roving the
streets...", "...armed and dangerous gangs..."
What if its not text?
All of the indexing techniques described above are useful when the
information being searched is text, that is written documents. How can we
search a database which contains images such as photographs?
Suppose you have the job of categorizing photographs to be included in a
database. You have a photograph taken in Vietnam 25 years ago. It shows a
group of U.S. soldiers cooking eggs over a fire. How would you index that
photo? Under "3rd Division?", "field rations?", "foraging?". Suppose that
faintly visible in the background of the photo was the wreckage of a U.S.
aircraft. Would you also index the photo under "MIA?" Would it be simple to
index a file containing imagery so that you could later retrieve all images
which contained "fortified areas?" There are indexing systems for imagery.
The purpose of the discussion above is to show that the problems of indexing
images is different from those associated with indexing text.
Information management tools
If you have read this handbook up to this point, you now have an
understanding that there are numerous on-line databases containing
information on almost any topic. You also have an understanding on how that
information can be accessed and searched. You may now be thinking, "All that
is wonderful, but, suppose I start to download 100 pages of documents each
week. What will I do with them? If I print them out, I'll either pile them
on the floor or attempt to file them? How can I manage all that information?
Indexing Tools
Just as databases stored on mainframe or minicomputers can be indexed, so can
collections of documents stored on a personal computer. Programs such as
ZyIndex( ZyLab (800) 544-6339) or Isys (Odyssey Development (303) 394-0091)
both build full text indexes and even on very large collections of documents,
search results are available instantaneously. List prices range from several
hundred dollars to a thousand or more depending on the number of simultaneous
users. Both companies have available free or very low cost demonstration
versions of their programs which will allow you to work with a small database
to become familiar with the software.
Off-line readers
A growing number of programs are available which allow you to develop a query
for information, read or prepare electronic mail or perform other tasks all
before connecting to an on-line database. The goal of these programs is to
minimize on-line connect time and therefore reduce charges.
"Smart" agents
Research is currently underway to develop programs using the techniques of
artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science and linguistics. These
programs will "learn" to understand the kind of information you require and
the best sources to find that information. Some of the complexities involved
in developing programs which can extract meaning from text are described in
the previous section which discusses indexing. Some of this research is
driven by the need to develop a way for consumers to find programs on the
500-channel cable systems soon to be available. If you try to "channel surf"
through that many channels, you will inevitably miss the programs you wanted
to watch.
A smart agent may learn that you always seem to download and spend a lot of
time with documents and images which deal with narcotics smuggling using
commercial aircraft. It would then seek out and provide you with additional
information on that topic on a continuing basis. Many mail reader programs
currently provide "twit" filters. These allow the user to specify topics or
individuals whose messages are to be ignored. The program Eudora, described
in Appendix C, provides powerful filter capabilities. A useful description of
existing and future tools to aid the analyst is presented in a report
produced by the P1000 Committee of the Advanced Information Processing and
Analysis Steering Group. In a Vision Statement this report says:
The quality of human performance is a function of both the tools that are
used and the innate abilities. The rapid evolution of electronic
technologies will continue for the foreseeable future, but it is the human
abilities that will remain static. Therefore, it is important to understand
and to capitalize on existing human strengths. Perceptual and cognitive
psychology are requisite disciplines to advance the understanding of human
capabilities. In the partnership between the computer and the human that
visualization technologies promise, knowledge of perception and cognition
will contribute substantially to the design of productive tools. They will
lay the groundwork upon which other advances are based.
8. Cost/benefits methods for information technology.
Placing a value in monetary terms on a piece of information is usually
difficult or impossible to do. Some work has been done in the corporate world
in an attempt to provide cost justification for investments in information
technology, but the results are not always conclusive. Of course, after the
fact, it is often easy to identify some particular information which would
have been very valuable. For example, the Son Tay raid mounted to free U.S.
POW's from a camp in North Vietnam would not have been attempted if it had
been know that the prisoners had been moved out of the camp.
Robert D. Steele in his paper ACCESS: Theory and Practice of Intelligence in
the Age of Information provides guidelines for evaluating information. He
points out that the U.S. spends about $20-30 billion a year on
"intelligence"; that is the collection of human and technical intelligence
and its processing. However, the total spending by research organizations,
universities, news gathering organizations and businesses for the collection
of information is estimated to be about $100 billion per year. Of that
information, only a small fraction is systematically exploited by the
intelligence community.
He points out that the value of information is derived from three
characteristics:
1v. Its substance or content
2v. The context in which is it being considered by others
3v. The timing with which it is received.
Of these, the last, timing, is the most important. Because OSI is by
definition unclassified, all of the political, legal and economic constraints
on the sharing of classified information are removed. It can be shared and
transmitted quickly and easily. The Third Wave Information Age described by
Toffler is here now. As an intelligence professional, you have a
responsibility to understand it implications on your profession and the
organization within which you work. The history of intelligence contains a
number of accounts of military intelligence produced only from open sources.
In the 1930's, as the German Army began to expand, a book was published in
Switzerland which described the army's order of battle in great detail. The
author, questioned by the Gestapo, demonstrated that all of the information
in the book had been derived from open sources. A wedding announcement
containing the rank and unit of the groom, a concert by a military band, all
were printed in some newspaper.
The computer allows the same kind of painstaking search which that author
performed to be done quickly and effectively. OSI is directly relevant to the
needs of the military intelligence professional. The cost to establish and
operate an OSI project is very low. Currently, a personal computer with
printer, CD-ROM drive and modem can be purchased for less than $3000. An
additional $500 will purchase indexing software. An on-line search budget of
$200-$300 per month will support daily scanning of the newswires and a number
of more detailed literature searches. The ability of the intelligence
professional to understand and use open source resources may spell the
difference between success or failure in future conflicts or policies. The
opportunity is great, the costs are low and the potential return is enormous.
Appendix A
ACCESS:Theory and Practice of Intelligence in the Age of Information
Robert D. Steele, President
OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc.
95% de l'information dont une entreprise a besoin peut
s'acquirir par des moyens honorables.
Henry Stiller, Director General
Histen Riller, Societe Civile
Executive Summary
Point #1: In the Age of Information, "intelligence" is less a matter of
penetrating secrets and more a matter of separating useful information from
the flood of open information that is available legally and cheaply;
electronic sources are especially useful.
Point #2: In combination, the economic and political cost of industrial
espionage, or penetrations of other governments to divine "plans and
intentions", are insupportable when contrasted with the benefits of open
source intelligence (OSINT).
Point #3: The concept of "central" intelligence cannot survive in the
Age of Information. By focusing on OSINT, a Nation can mobilize each of its
knowledge sectors, and turn the entire Nation into a "virtual" intelligence
agency with far greater collection, processing, and action capabilities than
are provided by the existing bureaucracies dedicated to national and defense
intelligence.
Point #4: Comprehensive national knowledge strategies must provide for
connectivity, content, culture, coin, and C4 security: the "Five C's".
Table of Contents
1 Background. What is the issue; changed "rules of the game"; national
information continuum; four information categories; three characteristics of
value; speed as the foundation of security; hard copy versus electronic
information.
2. Discussion. Role of intelligence and "virtual" intelligence;
information as a substitute for capital and labor; possible investment
strategy for information; political and economic cost of espionage;
pre-publication/pre-secret windows of opportunity; speed advantages of open
source exploitation.
3. Information Requirements and Player Identification. Priority versus
gaps-driven collection; four major consumer groups of intelligence; refining
the gaps-driven requirements process; model for consumer-oriented production;
four major target groups for intelligence; four kinds of players in the open
source arena.
4. Sources of Information and Methodology. Five distinguishing aspects
of information sources; essential reorientation of intelligence toward open
sources; privatization of intelligence; five elements of a national knowledge
strategy.
5. Industrial Espionage, Sanctions, and Proscribed Information. U.S.
views of Japanese and French; general attitudes about industrial espionage;
sanctions; proscribed (proprietary) information.
6. Analysis. Rules of the game have changed; competitive advantage has
shifted from secrecy to openness; new "order of battle" needed for national
intelligence; national knowledge strategy is a critical initiative; strategic
opportunity for competitive advantage exists.
7. Action Requirements. Reinvent national intelligence; realign
resources; establish a national information requirements council; establish
open source focal points within United States and other countries.
8. References. Resume and selected publications; other works of
importance; date of information.
1. Background
What is the issue? The issue of access has enormous importance for
both the national security and the national competitiveness of any
Nation.
The issue for the client is: how does a Nation achieve national
security and national competitiveness in the Age of Information, and
what does this mean to existing national policies on intelligence
organization and the expenditure of public and private funds for
information collection, processing, and dissemination activities.
Changed "Rules of the Game. An understanding of the "sources and
methods" which comprise "access" in the Age of Information is
absolutely vital for top-level decision makers in both government and
the private sector. Top-level decision-makers must understand that
the "rules of the game" have changed, and that competitive advantage
in the Age of Information is dependent on the laws of cybernetics, not
the laws of physics. Under the laws of physics, secrecy and the
restriction of knowledge provided a temporary advantage. In
cybernetics, openness and flexibility win.
Most great nations spend on the order of $20 billion to $30 billion a
year on "intelligence", which is traditionally comprised of
clandestine human intelligence, and technical collection of imagery
and signals.
National Information Continuum. At the same time, most great nations
have an "information continuum" (illustrated below) whose endeavors
and products are going to waste...the capabilities of these elements
of the national information continuum are not being exploited! This
continuum represents, in a typical great nation, a $100 billion per
year capability that is lying fallow.
K-12 Libraries PI/IB Government Intelligence
-------------------------------------------
Universities Business Media Defense
Figure 1A. The National Information Continuum-Nine Sectors
NOTE: The above is an original representation that has been current in the
literature for over a year. It is different from the more practical Sector
Breakout because it reflects a focus on elements of the information continuum
which do not-at this time-contribute significantly to national and defense
research endeavors.
Four Information Categories. There are four "information categories"
in the access arena. They are:
a. Open source or public information; within intelligence
communities, this is known as open source intelligence or OSINT.
"Grey literature", literature which is unclassified and not
proprietary, but produced in limited quantities for limited purposes,
is included as an element of OSINT. Open (unclassified) electronic
information, such as that available through the INTERNET and related
file servers and newsgroups, is also included in OSINT. The vast
majority of scientific & technical intelligence is available through
OSINT, to include 600 scientific & technical journals that appear only
in electronic form.
b. Open proprietary information, discernible through open source
investigation. This includes the reverse engineering of legitimately
acquired products, and legally conducted "competitor intelligence".
(Note: competitor intelligence is the globally accepted term for legal
research efforts by businesses studying their competitor's products,
organizations, and related matters.)
c. Closed proprietary information, available only through industrial
espionage or clandestine and technical penetrations of regulatory
agencies.
d. Classified information, available only through clandestine human
intelligence or technical (imagery or signals) intelligence.
Open Sources Proprietary (Open) Classified
-------------------------------------------
Grey Literature Proprietary (Closed)
Figure 1B. The Four Information Categories
Three Characteristics of Value. The value of information is derived
from three characteristics of the information: its substance or
content; the context within which it is being considered by others;
and the timing with which it is received.
The single most significant step an organization can take to
increase the value of the information it is acquiring is to increase
the speed with which the information is acquired and acted upon.
This is also the most inexpensive step-but only if top management is
willing to accept significant changes in doctrine and procedure.
Speed as the Foundation for Security. The speed with which
information moves and achieves value depends less on the information
itself (the externality) and more on the degree to which the
participating organizations are organized and aware of their
requirements (the internality). Organizations are drowning in
information because they have not learned to swim. They are not
trained, equipped, or organized to collect, process, disseminate,
and act upon information. The most important employees, the ones
with the contextual understanding of the situation, are normally not
empowered to act on information, and normally do not receive
intelligence products.
Imbuing a national infrastructure with "speed" really means that a
complete change is required in the way in which organizations relate
to one another, and in the way in which managers relate to front
line workers or action officers. The beauty of working with open
sources is that it eliminates, in a single stroke, all of the
political and legal, as well as the economic, constraints that
characterize the sharing of classified information. We have been
trying to water the desert with oil, instead of water.
Hard Copy versus Electronic Information. Finally, in discussing
issues of access, it is important to understand the relative value
of hard copy versus electronic information. Although hard-copy
information far outweighs electronic sources in quantity, and
particularly in relation to Third World sources, the electronic
world is where "up and coming" technologists as well as "up and
coming" leaders are communicating their most significant thoughts.
The electronic world is especially useful because it allows an enormous
amount of research to be conducted from a single location, and also allows
relatively anonymous browsing through other computers or commercially
available databases. Hard-copy is an important secondary source, especially
when investigating Third World and non-technical issues.
--------------------------------------------
First/Second World Hard Copy INTERNET
Figure 1C. Hard Copy versus Electronic Information
2. Discussion
Role of Intelligence and "Virtual" Intelligence. There is no issue
more important to a Nation in the Age of Information than that of
the role of intelligence-not only of the role of the traditional
national intelligence services, but also of the non-traditional
"virtual" intelligence services which are represented by the other
elements of the national information continuum.
A proper perspective on this matter, at the highest levels of both
the government and the private sector, represents at least a $100
billion a year value. This is enormously important, not only because
it will be the major policy area affecting the future of the Nation,
but because it is relatively easy to achieve by realigning and
coordinating existing capabilities and funds.
Information as a Substitute for Capital and Labor. In the Age of
Information, when information is the "first order" commodity, and
information is a substitute for time, space, capital, and labor, the
implications of this discussion are enormous. The fate of the Nation
depends on a proper appreciation of this issue, and on adequate
coordination between government and private sector leaders
responsible for elements of the information continuum.
Possible Investment Strategy for Information. The four "information
categories" in the access arena can be evaluated as follows:
- Open source: 80% of what is required for sound decision-making,
at 20% of the cost, in 20% of the time (relative to industrial
espionage or classified collection). The value of open source
information cannot be exaggerated.
- Proprietary (open): 5% of what is required, for an additional 10%
cost increment.
- Proprietary (closed): 5% of what is required, for an additional
20% cost increment.
- Classified: 10% of what is required, for an additional 50% cost
increment.
[-------------OSINT (80%)------------]
------------------------------------------
PROPRIETARY (10%)
CLASSIFIED (10%)
Figure 2A. Possible Investment Strategy for Information
Political and Economic Cost of Espionage. It merits comment that
industrial espionage in particular, but clandestine and technical
intelligence as well, reflects a political risk, or a potential
political cost, that is easily triple the economic cost-industrial
espionage and classified penetrations are not only twice as costly as
open source exploitation, they are also twice as likely to "explode"
in the face of their sponsor.
Pre-Publication/Pre-Secret Windows of Opportunity. In the area of open
source information, or open source intelligence (OSINT), it is very
important that decision-makers understand the levels of access in terms
of time -time is the vital aspect of cybernetics, and is the critical
factor in national competitiveness:
Published sources are available to mass audiences at the same
time-books are generally provided to the public years after they
were actually written; articles generally months after they were
written; and newspaper reporting days or weeks after being drafted..
"Grey literature" is available to specialized audiences at the same
time, and to non-members after a period of time.
"Work in progress" in available to peer review groups and to
specially equipped "outsiders".
"Pre-publication intelligence" is available to specially equipped
outsiders who take the trouble to identify and cultivate selected
sources of public information. This area is the "center of gravity"
for those who seek to "reinvent" national intelligence.
Speed Advantages of Open Source Exploitation. There are two reasons
why open source intelligence (OSINT) is a vital area of
concentration: the first is that most applied technology, including
proprietary or classified technology, begins with open publications
about its sub-elements, and it is often possible to piece together
very good intelligence reports "at the source" while avoiding the
risk of industrial espionage or clandestine operations against
foreign targets. The second reason is that every "dual-use"
technology to which export controls are eventually applied spends at
least two years, and sometimes up to ten years, in "beta"
development. The Department of Commerce, which has the lead in
classifying dual-use technology, is generally two years behind
actual market developments; this is particularly true in the
software arena. Thus, the best time to capture a "secret" or a
restricted technology, is during the two year "beta" window before
it becomes a secret or is restricted.
Real-Time Mind Link Beta Testing Traditional Sources
-------------------------------------------
Work in Progress Gray Literature
Figure 2B. Speed Advantages in Open Source Exploitation
Refining one's open source intelligence (OSINT) intelligence process
to collect information in the pre-publication stage, by identifying
and keeping in touch with key experts who provide advance looks at
"works in progress", adds a further six months to a year of
competitive advantage. Electronic searching is the single most vital
tool in identifying these experts "in time".
3. Information Requirements and Player Identification
There are three ways of looking at the information playing field: by
focusing on the four consumer groups for national intelligence; by
focusing on the four warrior classes of the future; and by focusing
on the sources of information. Each will be discussed in turn,
together with a means of executing gaps-driven collection and
consumer-oriented production.
Priority versus Gaps-Driven Collection. The information requirements
arena is traditionally one which intelligence communities have not
mastered. Too often they collect what is collectable, or obviously
protected, and they rarely produce intelligence that is tailored to
a specific customer or delivered "just in time". Information
requirements are typically driven by gross priorities (e.g. the
Soviets are priority one, the Chinese priority two), rather than by
"gaps" or real requirements. This often means that Third World
encyclopedic intelligence (most of which is unclassified), and
economic or demographic intelligence vital to penetrating foreign
markets, does not receive the attention it requires.
Four Major Consumer Groups of Intelligence. There are four specific
groups of information customers that every intelligence organization
should be serving, but generally does not, because it focuses on the
very highest levels of government rather than on the subordinate
levels where policy is actually created and actions are taken on a
day to day basis.
a. Departmental planners and programmers, in every Department of
government, not only in the national security arena, require both
strategic generalizations (rather than a flood of detailed reports
about tiny parts of many problems), and political-military
information heavily laden with information about "plans and
intentions".
b. Regional planners and programmers, including Ambassadors and
Assistant Secretaries of every Department of government, require
regional generalizations and very detailed mobility and market
information. This is the customer group most likely to take
advantage of intelligence which focuses on opportunities for
advantage, opportunities to prevent disaster or establish commercial
gains before anyone else realizes there is a threat or an
opportunity to be contested.
c. Ambassadors and corporate general managers in specific countries
require both detail about the physical capabilities of their
opponents or competitors, and very detailed evaluations of
sustainability, availability, reliability, and or accuracy of
competitor products. In the economic arena, intelligence about
demographics and culture is more easily obtained, and more valuable,
than internal corporate information about competing products. If you
understand the BUYER's requirements, you do not need to collect
every detail about competing SELLER's capabilities. This point
merits elaboration: competitive advantage comes from satisfying the
buyer, not from beating the opposing seller. It is far more
important to understand every detail about what the buyer wants to
buy, than attempting to understand opposing solutions.
d. System designers and project managers, and those at the most
senior levels who make acquisition and investment decisions,
generally receive adequate intelligence about technical details, but
do not receive good intelligence (intelligence which is generally
unclassified) about whether the system is really worth acquiring in
terms of cost-value, competing means of meeting the requirement,
cost of sustainability, and so on. For instance, most advanced
nations have invested billions of dollars in fast-moving
sophisticated systems and failed to establish the necessary
communications and computer support to actually make those systems
effective in the field.
System Designers Regional Planners
-------------------------------------------
General Managers Department Planners
Figure 3A. Four Major Consumer Groups for Intelligence
Refining the Gaps-Driven Requirements Process. The greatest flaw in
a priority-driven requirements process is that it is divorced from
the day to day needs of the policy and action-level consumer.
Priority-driven collection tends to err on the side of repetitive
and "vacuum cleaner" collection against the highest priorities, and
to completely disregard both encyclopedic and current intelligence
requirements for targets which may be of a lesser priority in the
"grand strategy" arena, but of vital interest at the operational and
tactical levels. A gap-driven information requirements process will
take its requirements each day (rather than through monthly or
quarterly "priorities validation" meetings), both from the consumer
of intelligence ("here is what I need to know tomorrow") and from
the analyst ("here are the things I did not know in producing this
report").
Model for Consumer-Oriented Production. The existing production
model, at least in the United States, is based on "stove-pipe"
production which is rarely as "all-source" as it could be (e.g. the
National Security Agency produces reports drawn largely from signals
intelligence), and is also severely deficient because it focuses on
specific countries, topics, or weapons systems-i.e. the production
is defined by the target, not by the needs of the consumer. Below is
illustrated a superior line of consumer-oriented products, most of
which would be unclassified and whose contents would be primarily "
A brigade in two days is worth a division five months later. And
therefore, precision warfare, precision delivery of violence,
precision delivery of deterrence becomes a currency which requires a
different configuration of information management." drawn from open
sources of intelligence.
BASIC PRODUCTION: COUNTRY PROFILES. Integrate executive summaries
for each of the four consumer groups, with brief encyclopedic
intelligence summaries of each of the key industrial, geographic,
and civil factors.
STRATEGIC PRODUCTION. Tailored products that focus on establishing
strategic generalizations pertinent to specific mission areas (e.g.
aircraft, automobiles, textiles), specific regions, and specific
timeframes (generally long-term).
OPERATIONAL PRODUCTION. Tailored products focused on regional
generalizations with a special emphasis on industrial areas within
the region, on seasonal differences (whether terrain or trade), and
on leadership character and demographics.
TACTICAL PRODUCTION.. For each industrial area (or industry area)
both generalizations and specifics country by country, with emphasis
on terrain, climatic, and civil constraints. It is only at this
level that a consumer should have to deal with the level of detail
which now characterizes most intelligence community products.
TECHNICAL PRODUCTION. Get away from system-specific production, and
move instead toward industry-area production with regional and
timeframe sub-sets. Focus on support to cost-benefit and trade-off
decisions, not on the system in isolation.
Figure 3B. Model for Consumer-Oriented Production
Four Major Target Groups for Intelligence. There are four specific
targets for information and intelligence activities; each of these
target groups must be completely understood if a Nation is to
maintain both its national security and its national competitiveness.
Each target group has a different source of power, and a different
way of training, organizing, and equipping itself for battle. Each
requires a different intelligence approach and in essence a
different kind of intelligence community. The traditional
intelligence officer will not be competent against all four of the
target sets-four different kinds of intelligence organizations must
be trained, equipped, and organized for their specific target set.
a. The High-Tech Brute, similar to the United States of America, is
that group which relies on expensive technical capabilities and hugh
logistics trains. In industrial terms, this is the capital-intensive
player.
b. The Low-Tech Brute, such as the narcotics trafficker or the
Italian crime family, represents a "needle in the haystack" problem.
In industrial terms, this is the labor-intensive player.
c. The High-Tech Seer, such as highly skilled and knowledgeable
computer engineers, is comprised of both conglomerations of skilled
individuals engaging in economic warfare, and single individuals,
"hackers", able to penetrate advanced computer and
telecommunications networks. In industrial terms, this is the
brain-intensive player.
d. The Low-Tech Seer, such as the Islamic Fundamentalists, or Asian
gangs in the United States, are those whose "weapons" are of a
cultural or demographic kind, whose "command and control" system is
comprised of the television and the pulpit-very difficult for a
Western intelligence service to understand and address. In industrial
terms, this is the labor union.
In each of these cases, using electronic sources of news and
information provides a significant competitive advantage in terms of
time, scope of review, and depth of understanding.
High-Tech Brute High-Tech Seer
-------------------------------------------
High-Tech Brute Low-Tech Seer
Figure 3C. Four Major Target Groups for Intelligence
Four Kinds of Players in the Open Source Arena. The diagram in the
"Background" section clearly identified the nine constituencies in
the access arena. Naturally there are sub-constituencies (e.g.
government is divided at the federal level into legislative,
executive, and judicial, and also into federal, state, and local;
media is divided into mainstream national papers, regional papers,
niche journals, and technical newsletters).
In general terms, there are four kinds of players:
- Those who talk to one another but are not influential, are
divorced from practical military or commercial applications: the
"ivory tower" academics. Spend 10% of your resources on this group.
- Those who are influential but do not quote one another and
contribute nothing substantial: the "bandwagon" journalists. Spend
10% of your resources on this group.
- Those who are both connected to one another and influential-this
constitutes the "mainstream" of current thinking. The downside of
the mainstream is that is tends to reflect conventional wisdom
rather than innovative or revolutionary thinking. Spend 20% on this
group.
- Those-and they are a small group-that are neither connected nor
influential, but who are in fact the "up and coming" leaders in
their disciplines. It is this group which not only represents the
greatest potential value for a Nation, but which is the least
protected! The only obstacle to exploiting this group is internal,
it is bureaucratic! Spend 60% on this group. Although intelligence
organizations are accustomed to thinking of this group as a source
of "sleeper" agents, in fact it should be thought of as a source of
"avant garde" thinking which is not only of enormous importance to
international competitiveness and domestic security, but
predominantly unclassified.
Mainstream (20%) Up and Coming (60%)
-------------------------------------------
Bandwagon (10%) Ivory Tower (10%)
Figure 3D. Four Kinds of Players in the Open Source Arena
4. Sources of Information and Methodology
Five Distinguishing Aspects of Information Sources. Sources of
information can be classified by medium, location, discipline,
language, and level of classification.
The most pervasive medium is hard-copy information. However, most of
the hard-copy information is of relatively low grade, and often not
worth the expense of acquisition. Never-the-less, it cannot be
ignored. Spend 20% of your resources on the hard-copy medium.
The next major medium is micro-fiche; although many organizations
are phasing out their micro-fiche holdings, this remains an
important medium, particularly in the patent and archival worlds.
Spend 10% on this medium.
Electronic information is available through on-line services as well
as off-line products. It is important to emphasize that electronic
information includes imagery (SPOT, LANDSAT) as well as signals
(foreign radio and television broadcasts, unencrypted cellular
telephones, facsimiles, and telex transmissions). It is also
important to note that, despite the fact that electronic information
is a relatively small arena of interest in relation to hard-copy and
microfiche, it is "exploding" and already dominates many of the most
advanced disciplines as the "medium of choice. For instance, this
medium contains over 600 scientific journals on-line that do not
appear in hard-copy at all. The electronic medium is the battleground
where strategic advantage can be gained at relatively low cost and
with no political risk-it is open, it is pervasive, and it is not
being exploited by other countries as well as it could be-this is a
very important area. Spend 40% of your resources on this medium.
The most subtle storage medium is the human brain. No intelligence
service will ever master the data entry or data collection problem.
The most important capability any intelligence service can develop
is that of establishing real-time mind-links between the customer
and the best available source. The "intelligence minuteman" concept,
first articulated in December 1992 at the First International
Symposium on "National Security & National Competitiveness: Open
Source Solutions", is the wave of the future. Spend 30% of your
resources on this medium. Note that this medium provides real-time
access to the other mediums-the human expert responsive to tasking
can rapidly collect, process, and disseminate essential information
from the other mediums, on demand.
It is important to note that in the Age of Information technology
has made possible a radical shift in why and when one acquires
information. It is now possible to train, equip, and organize
collectors of information for "just in time" collection instead of
"just in case" collection. Hard copy and microfiche were the
dominant storage mediums under the old "just in case" paradigm.
Electronic information, and direct access to an enormous global pool
of overt human assets are the dominant access mechanisms under the
new paradigm.
The location of the information is both geographic and physical.
Some information cannot be obtained without a personal visit to its
location. Most information can be obtained remotely, through a
telephone call or correspondence, and payment if necessary to the
appropriate person.
A single researcher skilled at remote data acquisition for a
particular region is more valuable than 100 clandestine case
officers spread over ten countries. Physically the information might
be part of a central filing system or a personal filing system. 80%
of the time the information will be part of a personal filing
system, which reiterates the critical importance of developing human
paths to the information.
Professional disciplines (e.g. physics, electro-optics) are the most
global and well-organized structures through which to acquire
information. Penetrating a professional association with global
links is far more useful than penetrating a single government's
nuclear facility, to take one example. Again, professional
associations provide the human links and paths toward virtually any
information-they are also the most likely to publish information
before it becomes classified. It is futile to train intelligence
professionals to pretend to be scientists. It is much more useful
and cost-effective to provide existing scientists with the finest
communication tools and travel budgets possible-they will absorb
far more, and be able to report far more, than a few case officers
working with a few agents of limited access.
Language skills cannot be ignored. English, French, Spanish,
Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic are the most important languages,
followed by Russian, Punjabi, Hindu, and Hebrew. Any international
intelligence or information service which does not have at least
100 people fluent in each of the most important languages, and at
least 20 people fluent in each of the minor languages listed above,
is not serious. Language translation programs (e.g. Global Link) are
important aids, and can be used to reduce the time of translation for
a typical document from eight hours to three. The importance of
linguistic and cultural nuances should not be underestimated. The
language of the consumer should be the language of production, even
if this involves extraordinary cost.
Level of classification (in governments generally Confidential,
Secret, Top Secret, and Codeword; in business generally Proprietary,
Trade Secret, Executive Only) is the most mis-understood and
over-rated basis for selecting information. Enormous amounts of
money are wasted, and significant political risk is undertaken, to
obtain information that is classified "secret" or "proprietary".
This is a fundamental mistake which reflects a lack of understanding
about how knowledge works in society, a lack of understanding of
current trends in information sources and methods.
MEDIUM DISCIPLINE CLASSIFICATION
-------------------------------------------
LOCATION LANGUAGE
Figure 4A. Five Distinguishing Aspects of Information Sources
Essential Reorientation of Intelligence Toward Open Sources. The
methods used to obtain information should be appropriate to the
sector of information generation that is being studied. Each of the
nine sectors has information producers. Each nation has
representatives of their own in sectors of their own. For instance,
your own journalists are frequently the best means of approaching
foreign journalists, and of monitoring the production and the human
sources being used by foreign journalists.
The fundamental flaw in the "methods" of most intelligence agencies
is that they attempt to acquire all information using their own
personnel and clandestine or technical methods. Instead, they should
leverage the other sectors of the information continuum, and
establish a "virtual" intelligence community that is comprehensive.
By focusing on open information and the open exploitation of
individuals in all sectors, a Nation with a $10 billion intelligence
budget can leverage another $90 billion in existing independent but
exploitable "virtual" intelligence capabilities whose "overhead"
costs are not being paid by the government. The electronic medium is
the "lever that can move the world" and give the intelligence
professional enormous access.
Privatization of Intelligence
The most fundamental change in "methods", besides moving away from
investments in clandestine and technical intelligence capabilities,
and toward investments in open source intelligence, is that of the
privatization of intelligence. It is more efficient, most
cost-effective, indeed, more discreet, to utilize ad hoc private
collectors and processors of information, than it is to use existing
bureaucracies, including existing intelligence agencies and existing
Embassies or local corporate offices overseas.
Five Elements of a National Knowledge Strategy. This focus on
openness is extremely important because it means that the fruits of
this open source intelligence effort can be shared directly with
industry, the press, and the legislature, without the slightest
political risk. For those who do not understand how "open"
information can provide a competitive advantage, consider only how
disorganized everyone else is-the first Nation to establish a
national knowledge strategy which harnesses the full power of their
information continuum will achieve an enormous competitive advantage
as we enter the Age of Information. A national knowledge strategy is
comprised for five elements:
a. CONNECTIVITY. Provide leading representatives within each sector
with the telecomputing tools they require to keep in touch with
their counterparts in all other countries, and with one another. At
the same time, provide government and corporate intelligence analysts
with the same tools, and provide everyone with incentives to
communicate with one another.
b. CONTENT. Provide incentives to all parties to maximize the amount
of information that they put "on-line"; the government can increase
on-line information by testing new economic models (for instance,
the "compound interest" model instead of the "single sale" model for
compensating authors) and making appropriate adjustments to
copyright and patent law. This is a two-way concept. It is not only
important to increase the amount of foreign language material that
is captured, translated, and placed on-line, but it is equally
important that great emphasis be placed on exporting national
intellectual products which have been fully and accurately
translated into major foreign languages such as English, Japanese,
and Chinese. In the Age of Information, "gunboat diplomacy" has
been replaced by intellectual influence. The quality of a nation's
intellectual output, and the degree to which it is made usable by
others, will have a dramatic impact on the strategic position of
the Nation.
c. CULTURE. Recognize the importance of accelerating the integration
of ethnic populations and economically impoverished citizens. In
particular, those ethnic groups which speak and read fluently the
language of their adopted country, and the language of their former
country, are priceless national assets which can be used as
interpreters and translators.
d. COIN. A typical major nation wastes on the order of $2 billion a
year just on end-user fiddling with personal computer hardware and
software combinations. If all redundant and contradictory research &
development were brought under control, just in the information
technology arena, a typical major nation would probably save on the
order of $10-20 billion a year.
e. C4 SECURITY. Every nation, and particularly the advanced nations
of Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world, is extremely vulnerable to the
interruption of command & control, communications, and computing
services. Virtually every major antenna system, including the
downlinks from the satellites, is completely unprotected. No nation
has established a serious C4 security posture that recognized the
degree to which government, military, and economic communications
depend on a very vulnerable civil infrastructure. No nation has
established an effective "cyberspace order of battle". This is the
"Pearl Harbor" of the Age of Information, waiting to happen.
CONNECTIVITY CULTURE C4 SECURITY
-------------------------------------------
CONTENT COIN (R&D)
Figure 4B. The Five Elements of a National Knowledge Strategy
5. Industrial Espionage, Sanctions, and Proscribed Information
U.S. Views of Japanese and French. There is a very strong perception
within the United States that the Japanese view economic competition
as "war", and that the French, while not necessarily viewing
economic competition as war, are willing to engage in "unethical"
measures including direct support from government intelligence
agencies to specific French companies. The book Friendly Spies: How
America's Allies are Using Economic Espionage to Steal Our Secrets,
while discredited in some circles, has done enormous damage to
French interests in the U.S. The running joke about Air France seats
being "bugged", very common in U.S. business circles, is a good sign
of how deeply this book has penetrated the "psyche" of the U.S.
business community.
General Attitudes About Industrial Espionage. Most U.S. companies do
not have a full appreciation of how easily others can penetrate
their organizations, and most do not engage in significant
industrial espionage. For instance, most U.S. companies have
absolutely no computer security and no measures to protect their
computers from external penetration. They are completely unaware of
the ease with which computer screens and computer emissions can be
captured from a van parked outside their building. There is a general sense among U.S. firmsthat industrial espionage is "not worth it". There are two exceptions to this: the first is the hirig of executives and key employees from competitor firms, and the second is bribery, but only oversea.
Sanctions. The Toshiba case is a good example of the sanctions that
might be imposed is specific instances when there is a public
knowledge of violation, but in general the U.S. government will not
publicize or act on cases of industrial espionage.
Proscribed (Proprietary) Information. There is a strong trend in the
United States toward openness. This is true of the government, where
many "secrets" and many secret technologies are about to be
declassified, and also of industry, where there is a growing
understanding that the restriction of information imposes internal
costs that may not be warranted. In the case of specific chemical
formulas or other "protectable" secrets, this may not be so, but in
the case of general engineering practices, targeted markets, and so
on, the general focus is on openness and staying ahead of the
competition, rather than on protecting secrets.
6. Analysis
The client is better able to evaluate the applicability of this new
theory and practice of intelligence to their needs, but on balance
one must conclude:
"Rules of the Game" Have Changed. The Age of Information has
redefined our concepts of war and peace, of national security and
national competitiveness. The "rules of the game" have changed, and
there has been a reordering of both power and the sources of power.
Information is now a commodity, and the most important resource to
any Nation.
Competitive Advantage Has Shifted From Secrecy to Openness. The Age
of Information has destroyed the ability of individuals,
organizations, and governments to control information or restrict
the dissemination of information. It is virtually impossible to keep
a "secret" in this day and age. Hence, the competitive advantage has
shifted from those able to conduct research in secret, to those able
to RAPIDLY exploit the efforts of others through openly available
information collected "just in time".
New "Order of Battle" Needed for National Intelligence. The Age of
Information requires a new "order of battle" philosophy within
national governments and their major corporate sectors. The degree
to which individual minds can be linked across sectors now becomes
more important than the number of tanks one has-existing
conventional forces can be immobilized, and existing industrial
processes can be superseded, by relatively modest applications of
knowledge. The rapid development of competent electronic search &
retrieval specialists, and particularly specialists in scientific &
technical databases and newsgroups, as well as cultural matters,
should be a national priority.
National Knowledge Strategy is a Critical Initiative. Although there
are several nations, including Japan, Sweden, Israel, and Taiwan
(and their tribal villages world-wide) which are generally ahead of
all others in their national knowledge activities, no nation has
actually developed a national knowledge strategy nor harnessed the
potential of its nine sectors in the information continuum-a
continuum that constitute a "virtual" intelligence community of
enormous power.
Strategic Opportunity for Competitive Advantage Exists. A strategic
opportunity for competitive advantage exists. In my judgment there
is about a two to five year window within which an organized
national effort can reap enormous dividends. After that time many
organizations will both realize the power of open information and
start developing their own collection capabilities more fully, and
public encryption will be widespread, introducing a "Tower of Babel"
effect into the "electronic English" information commons that is
just beginning to appear.
7. Action Requirements
a. Reinvent National Intelligence. Each nation has an enormous store
of non-traditional intelligence and information capabilities outside
of government that are rarely called upon. Consider the potential of
these non-traditional sources, and develop plans for the total
mobilization of the nation's intellectual power.
b. Realign Resources. Roughly 80% of the existing intelligence
budget could be realigned to open source intelligence (OSINT)
collection, processing, and dissemination, in close cooperation with
the other elements of the national information continuum, who might
be inspired to effect their own realignments once they see the
government in a leadership role.
CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE 10%
PROPRIETARY INTELLIGENCE 10%
OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE 80%
Human Sources 30% 24%
- "Up and Coming" 60% 24%
- Mainstream 20% 08%
- Bandwagon 10% 04%
- Ivory Tower 10% 04%
Hard Copy 20% 16%
Microfiche 10% 08%
Electronic 40% 32%
NOTE: Column one percentages are 100% of subheading percentage in column
two, while column two percentages are 100% of column three subheading. The
percentages in column three are actual percentages of the total budget.
Figure 7A. Notional National Intelligence Resource Realignments
c. Establish a National Information Requirements Council. Identify
an organization able to coordinate demands for information with
global collection activities and impose the common sense guideline
of exploiting open sources as "the source of first resort". This has
the interesting ramification of also making much more of what we
need to know obtainable through private sector capabilities rather
than government capabilities.
d. Establish Open Source Focal Points Within United States and Other
Countries. Within the United States, contract with two separate
organizations: the first should serve as a complement to the Embassy
and as a rapid-response local representative for the national
intelligence council. It's role should be one of requirements
management, oversight, and product packaging. The second
organization should actually carry out all the research through
sub-contracted collection and production, with value-added quality
control. Similar arrangements can be made in other countries,
perhaps by building on the established SVP network.
8. References
A resume and a list of selected personal publications are attached.
The Proceedings of the First International Symposium on "National
Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions", are the
sole existing foundation for a national intelligence restructuring of
this magnitude. A copy of both volumes is provided as part of this
report, together with copies of more recent articles, speeches, and
testimony bearing on this issue.
Other works of importance include: Jon Sigurdsom and Yael Tagerud
(eds), The Intelligent Corporation: The Privatization of
Intelligence (Taylor Graham, 1992); Alvin Toffler, War and Anti-War:
Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (Little, Brown,
forthcoming), see especially the chapters on knowledge warriors and
the future of the spy. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare: How to
Wage and Win War in Cyberspace (Interpact, forthcoming).
James Holden-Rhodes, Sharing the Secrets: Open Source Intelligence and the
War on Drugs (Sandia National Laboratory, forthcoming)
9. Date of Information. 17 September 1993
Appendix B
Government BBS Systems
The U.S. government provides access to information through a number of
bulletin board systems (BBS). Many of these are accessible through a single
gateway which then allows access to the whole range of BBS. This gateway is
known as FedWorld.
To connect to FedWorld, all you need is a personal computer and a modem.
Use your communications software package to dial FedWorld at 703/321-8020.
Set your parity to NONE, Data Bits to 8 and Stop Bit to 1 (N,8,1). Set your
terminal emulation to ANSI. You can also reach FedWorld via Internet using
the telnet command. Telnet to:
fedworld.gov (192.239.92.201)
If you have technical problems or questions, please call 703/487-4608
weekdays, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.. You can also leave questions in the form
of E-mail on FedWorld to SYSOP.
These Government Online Systems Can Be Accessed by Calling (703) 321-8020
or on the Internet using http://www.fedworld.gov
BBS systems accessible through FedWorld
ALF (USDA) :National Agricultural Library BBS
ALIX (LC) :Automated Library Information eXchange
BOM-BBN (DOI) :Bureau of Mines-Bulletin Board Network
ISM-SIS (IRS) :ISM Support Info System
CIC-BBS (GSA) :Consumer Information Center
CLU-IN (EPA) :Superfund Data and Information
CPO-BBS (Census) :Lists open jobs at the Census Dept
ADA-BBS (DOJ) :Amer. With Disabilities Act Info
Computer Security (NIST) :Computer Sys Lab Computer Security BBS
DCBBS (DC Govt) :DC Government Information
DMIE (NIST/CSL) :NIST/CSL Data Management Information
EBB (DOC) :Economic data and information
ELISA System (DOD) :DoD Export License Tracking System
GSA/IRM BBS (GSA) :Information Resources Management Issues
EPUB (DOE) :Energy information and data
FDA's BBS (FDA) :FDA info and policies
FDA/DMMS (FDA) :PMA, IDE, 510k & guidance documents
FERC-CIPS (DOE) :Fed Energy Regulatory Commission
FEBBS (FHWA) :FHWA information and data
FEDERAL BBS (GPO) :GPO and Govt Data (Fee Based)
OSS-BBS (GSA) :GSA On-line Schedules System
Eximbank BBS (EXIMBANK) :Export/Import Bank data and info.
JAG-NET (USN) :Navy Judge Advocate General
Labor News (DOL) :Dept of Labor information and files
Megawatt 1 (DOE) :Information on energy and DoE
NADAP (USN) :Navy Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention
RIBBS (USPS) :US Postal Service Rapid Information
EHSC-DDS :Army Engineering & Housing
NDB-BBS(USDA) :Human Nutrition Information Service
NSSDC\NASA\Goddard :The NASA NODIS Locator System.
OIS (Bureau of Prisons) :US Bureau of Prison employees
SBIR-BBS (NASA) :NASA Small Business Innovation Research
WTIE-BBS (EPA) :Wastewater Treatment Info Exchange
QED-BBS (USGS) :Quick Epicenter Determ and EQ data
SALEMDUG-BBS (FEMA) :State and local FEMA user groups
SBA On Line (SBA) :SBA Information & Data (Full Service)
GAO WATCHDOG (GAO) :Identify Waste Fraud and Abuse
Sample Weather Data (NWS):Sample data from Fee Based System
TELENEWS (DOE) :Data and info on Fossil fuels
USA-GPCS BBS (USA) :Army Info System Software
USCS-BBS (USCS) :Customs and Exchange Rate Data & Info
USGS-BBS (USGS) :Geological Survey BBS/CD-ROM Info
NLPBB (USN) :CNO's Navy Leadership Policy BB
FMS-BBS (Treasury) :Inventory management data & programs
OASH-BBS (HHS) :Health & AIDS Information & Reports
FEDIX :Links Fed Data to Higher Education
PSIC (USCG) :GPS, Loran & Omega Info/status
NGCR-BBS (USN) :Next Generation Computer Resources Stan
FAA Safety Exchange (FAA):Small Plane Safety Reports & info
NTIS QuikSERVICE (NTIS) :Order NTIS Documents Online
STIS (NSF) :Science & Technology Information System
Census-BEA (Census) :Census BEA Electronic Forum
NOAA-ESDD (NOAA) :NOAA Environmental Services Data Direct
Offshore-BBs (DOI) :Off Shore Oil & Gas Data
TQM-BBS (T. Glenn) :Total Quality Management
NIDR Online (NIH) :Nat. Institute of Dental Research
NIHGL (NIH) :Nat. Inst. of Health Grant Line BBS
MARlinspike BBS (DOT) :Maritime Admin. Press Releases, Etc.
NCJRS-BBS (DOJ) :National Criminal Justice Reference Sy
DRIPSS (EPA) :Drinking Water Info Processing Support
PIM BBS (EPA) :Pesticide Information Network
OEPC BBS (DOI) :Interior's Off of Environment. Affairs
CABB (Dof State) :Passport Info/ Travel Alerts
FCC-State Link (FCC) :FCC daily digest & carrier stats/report
FREND #1 (NARA) :Fed. Register Electronic News Delivery
FREND #2 (NARA) :Fed. Register Electronic News Delivery
HSETC MD (USN) :Naval Health Sci Edu & Training Command
PPCUG/RDAMIS (DOD) :Pentagon Users Group BBS
ORDBBS (EPA) :EPA Office of Research & Development BB
CBEE (USCG) :Coast Guard On-Line Magazine & News
ATD BBS (FAA) :Air Transport Div. BBS
ATOS-BBS (FAA) :Air Traffic Operations Service BBS
AEE BBS (FAA) :FAA Office of Environment & Energy
GEMI (GSA) :GSA Electronic Management Information
Airports BBS #1 (FAA) :Airport operators and designers
EnviroNET (NASA) :Space Environment Information Service
FAA HQ BBS (FAA) :FAA Headquarters BBS
IMA BBS (USA) :Integration & Analysis Center BBS
NTIA-BBS (DOC) :Radio Freq. Management Issues
ED Board (DOEdu) :Dept of Ed Grant & Contract Info
BHPr-BBS (HHS) :Medical & Health Services Information
Marine Data BBS (NOAA) :Marine Databases & Files
Call-ERS BBS (USDA) :Agriculture Economic Research Info
Call ERS (USDA) :Economic Research Line Service Line 2
PTO-BBS (PTO) :Patent and Trademark Office BBS
PerManNet (Dof State) :US Agency for International Development
Quick Facts! (NIAAA/HHS) :Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism Information
IITF-BBS (NTIA) :Info. Infrastructure Task Force BBS
IBNS/OMPAT BBS (DOD) :Military Performance Assessment
NIH Info Center (NIH) :NIH Information, Files, Pubs
OECI-BBS (DOC&DOD) :Defense Conversion Information
AVADS-BBS (DOI) :Dept of Interior Job Announcements
NRCDR-BB (NRC) :NRC Decommisioning Rulemaking BBS
Appendix C
Open Source Resources
This appendix lists providers of on-line databases, organizations which
provide focused reporting and searches and other books, articles and
products useful in dealing with OSI.
Associations
American Society for Information Science (ASIS)
8720 Georgia Avenue, Suite 501, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, Voice(301)
95-0900, Fax (301)495-0810
Association of Information and Dissemination Centers (ASIDIC)
Post Office Box 8105, Athens, Georgia 30602-8105, Voice(706)542-6820
Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP)
3724 FM 1960 West, Suite 214, Houston, Texas 77068, Voice(713)537-9051,
Fax (713)537-8332
Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO)
6723 Whittier Avenue, Suite 303A, McLean, Virginia 22101, Voice(703)790-0320,
Fax (703)790-0264
Center for Civic Networking (CCN)
91 Baldwin Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, Voice(617)241-9205,
Fax (617)241-5064
Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
21 Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. 20036, Voice (202)872-0884, Fax
(202)296-5098
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
1001 G Street, N.W., Suite 9506, Washington, D.C. 20001, Voice (202)347-5400,
Fax (202)393-5509
Information Industry Association (IIA)
555 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20001, Voice
(202)639-8262, Fax (202)638-4403
International Association of Law Enforcement Analysts (IALEA)
Post Office Box 52-2924, Miami, Florida 33152, Voice (305)653-3010, Fax
(305)716-3218
Internet Society (ISOC)
12020 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 270, Reston, Virginia 22091, Voice:
(703)648-9888, Facsimile: (703)648-9887
Society of Professional Journalists
16 South Jackson, Greencastle, Indiana 46135,Voice (317)653-3333, Fax
(317)653-4631
Society of Competitor Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)
1700 Diagonal Road, Suite 520, Alexandria, Virginia 22314, Voice
(703)739-0696, Fax (703)739-2524
Databases - CD-ROM
Earth Science CD-ROM's: A Collection Buyer's Guide
Article in the March 1994 issue of CD-ROM Professional lists recurring
sources of information on earth science CD-ROM's, as well as an earth
science CD-ROM sampler. Sources include the SIGCAT Newsletter; Omnet
ScienceNet bulletin boards, the Information Systems Newsletter from NASA,
the EEZ News from USGS-NOAA, New Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey,
the National Geophysical Data Center Data Announcement, the U.S. Army
Topographic Engineering Center's Digital Data Digest, and the NODC
Environment Information Bulletin and Earth System Monitor. Among the core
CD-ROMs recommended are the Marine Climatic Atlas of the World, the Tropical
Ocean Global Atmosphere CD-ROM, the Geophysics of North America CD-ROM, the
Seafloor Imagery and Bathymetry for Continental Shelf of Washington, Oregon,
and California, and the Global Ocean Temperature and Salinity Profiles CD-ROM.
Political Risk Services on CD-ROM.
Contains 100 country-specific forecasts, the equivalent of their Political
Risk Yearbook. Price is $1,000 per year plus $35 for express delivery
world-wide, or $1500 when purchased with the hard-copy Political Risk
Yearbook. For information call (315) 472-1224 or fax (315) 472-1235.
The Economic Literature Index
This index is found in DIALOG file 139 and is also available as a CD-ROM
product. Published by the American Economic Association, this is a
world-wide index, not just a U.S. index. Price is around $1,600. For details
on the CD-ROM, write SilverPlatter Information Services, Inc., 100 River
Ridge Drive, Norwood, MA 02062-5026, or fax (617-769-8763. (U.S. voice is
800-343-0064).
Information Management Tools
PATHFINDER
A set of software programs developed at the National Ground Intelligence
Center. Mr. Tim Hendrickson at the PATHFINDER Project Office, (804) 980-7242.
PATHFINDER provides programs to query databases, and perform analysis on the
results of queries. A number of utility and data adminstration functions are
also provided.
Internet Organizations and Databases
Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resources Guides
This effort is jointly sponsored by the University Library and the School of
Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan. In contains
among others:
Aerospace Engineering: A Guide to Internet Resources
Archives on the Internet
Government Sources of Business & Economic Information
A Guide to Environmental Resources on the Internet
Neurosciences Internet Resource Guide
US Technology Public Policy
To reach the clearinghouse <gopher.lib.umich.edu>, look for "What's New
and Featured Resources=>Clearinghouse..." or anonymous ftp to
<una.hh.lib.umich.edu path:/inetdirsstaks>. If you have trouble, email to
<[email protected]>.
Daily News - Free Internet Sources
Electronic document published 16 May 1994. For a copy of this 25 page
document send email to <[email protected]> or <[email protected]>.
Electronic maps
Internet at <http://rowan.lib.utexas.edu/map-collection.html>
Eudora 2.01
Qualcomm Inc, 6455 Lusk Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92121,
voice (800) 238-3672, or Internet <[email protected]>. $65. Program
which is an electronic mail manager and filter. Messages whose author or
subject match the requirements defined in a filter are filed or discarded.
Information Professionals List (InfoPro)
is a private, inter-disciplinary network of professional information
gatherers, including private investigators, law librarians, legal
investigators for law firms, fee-based information brokers, public record
research specialists, investigative reporters, competitor intelligence
professionals, and related professions. One can participate in InfoPro from
CompuServ, America Online, Delphi, and Internet (or any other server with
email, for that matter). If you wish to receive an application to join
InfoPro, communicate with Mr. James Cook at <[email protected]> (from
CompuServ, >INTERNET: [email protected]), or at voice: (415) 364-6121.
Library-Oriented Lists and Electronic Serials
List compiled by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Assistant Director for Systems,
University Libraries, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204-2091. He
can be reached at voice: (713) 743-9804, fax: (713) 743-9748,
email <[email protected]>.
Pacific Rim Internet Resources
Asia-Pacific Regional Information gopher <emailhost.alt.ac.th>; Georgia
State University Asian Information gopher <gopher.gsu.edu>; Australia
telnet <info.anu.edu.au> (ELISA); Japan gopher <ncc.go.jp>; Asian News
Publications on the Internet gopher <gopher.cic.net>; newsgroups at
<soc.culture.*> (replace "*" with one of the following: asian, australian,
china, filipino, hongkong, india, indonesia, japan, korean, malaysia,
new-zealand, singapore, sri-lanka, taiwan, tamil, thai, vietnamese); and ftp
site <ftp rtfm.mit.edu ed/pub/usenet/news.answers/*, where "*" is equal to
country identifiers in previous listing, and allows access to Frequently
Asked Questions pertaining to the respective newsgroup.
Please Copy This Disk (PCTD)
This project, on demand, copies existing electronic texts from throughout
the Internet, and mails you the diskette at a cost of $10 per document.
Also publishes a monthly newsletter listing new sources, and can provide
information about electronic texts available in various areas. Communicate
with them at <[email protected]>.
Radio Free Europe daily transcripts
can be found via gopher under news at many locations, including the
University of Michigan's Blue server at <gopher.itd.umich.edu>. To get the
day's transcripts delivered to you personally, email
<[email protected]>, writing in the body of your message
<subscribe RFERL-L your-first-name your-last-name>.
Scout Report
Describes new Internet resources and other related news. To receive the
electronic mail version of the Scout Report, send e-mail
to <[email protected]> and in the body of the message type
"subscribe scout-report [email protected]>. Gopher access at
<is.internic.net/Information Services>, WWW to <http://www internic.net>.
The Internet Society NEWS
To receive membership information for the Internet Society,
call (703) 648-9888, fax to (703) 648-9887, or send e-mail to
<[email protected]>. An essential reference for all users of the Internet.
The Electronic Newsstand
Presents articles selected by The New Republic from major publications.
Gopher to <enew.com> or telnet to <enews.com> signing in as "enews" with no
password required.
WAIS Inc.
Kevin Oliveau. (301)309-1280. Sells retrieval software for use on the
Internet for $15,000 with support and upgrades. Allows creation of documents
to be published on the Internet. Will soon be selling Internet In A Box, a
complete package for Internet access.
Has material essential for understanding Wide Area Information Servers. For
a complete copy of the package, communicate with Barbara Lincoln Brooks,
WAIS, Inc.; 1040 Noel Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Voice: (415) 327-9247,
facsimile (415) 327-6513. INTERNET: [email protected]
Meetings and Conferences
Although there are hundreds of conferences offered by both the government
and private sector on various aspects of open sources, systems, and services,
the following stand out as the most useful for the military intelligence
community.
Annual OSS Conference
This is the core conference, addressing OSI strategy, policy, collection,
production, and hands-on applications. It takes place in November each year,
always in Washington, D.C., and includes over 30 international speakers, 30
interactive interest groups, several pre-conference sessions, and 50-75
exhibits. Around 800-900 people from all over the world attend. For
information call Ms. Sharon Becker at (703) 242-1700 or fax (703) 242-1711.
Annual S&TI Sources Conference
Sponsored by NASA, this conference focuses on International Document
Acquisition and takes place in Washington, D.C. each September, generally
attracting around 300 U.S. government professionals. For information
call Mr. Tom Hermann at (301) 621-0148.
Annual Tools Conference
Advanced Information Processing and Analysis Symposium. Sponsored by the
Advanced Information Processing and Analysis Steering Group of the
Intelligence Research & Development Council, this conference focuses on
advanced software and hardware solutions for the multi-media all-source
product. The next conference is scheduled for 28-30 March 1995 in the
Washington, D.C. area. For information call Ms. Susan Parker
at (703) 351-2635.
Planned Industry Day
The joint COSPO-CENDI Industry Day is in the planning stage and expected to
be in the Spring of 1995, late April to early May. It will be a 2-day
activity with 32 sessions and additional side-bars to facilitate information
exchange. Some 60 exhibitors will be on hand for 150-200 invited guests.
The purpose of the events will be to: (1) Identify gaps in the availability
of The Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO) is planning to sponsor
an annual industry day to brief vendors on its requirements. The first one
is tentatively scheduled for March 1995. For information call Mr. Robert
Korte at (703) 281-8912.
Outside of these focused OSINT-specific conferences, there are a variety of
industrial conferences such as the U.S. and the London "OnLine" conferences,
the annual meetings of the Special Libraries Association and the Association
of Information and Dissemination Centers and the other associations listed
in this appendix.
Sixth National OPSEC Conference
"Focus on the Future: Managing Risk in a Dynamic World," 1-6 May 1994,
Hilton Hotel, Alburquerque, NM (for information on future conferences,
contact IOSS or OPS listed under organizations in this appendix. While not
directly related to OSI, one reviewer of this handbook pointed out that open
sources should be used in planning OPSEC measures because they can reveal
what is already publically known about friendly activity so that resources
are not wasted trying to protect information that is inherently
unprotectable or is already known to potential adversaries. He suggests that
the ability to retrieve and manipulate open source material would have to be
considered a prerequisite for an effective examination of operations from an
OPSEC perspective.
Organizations - Government
Advanced Information Processing and Analysis Steering Group (AIPASG)
For information contact Mrs. Susan Parker at (703) 351-2635. This group of
the U.S. Intelligence Community holds an annual conference focusing on
analytic tools and the supporting technologies supporting the intelligence
analyst.
British Broadcasting Service
Program listings and other information are available via World-Wide-Web at
<http://www.bbcnc.org.uk//. CENDI(Commerce, Energy, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, National Library of Medicine, Defense, Interior)
U.S. government agencies interested in joining the CENDI consortium are
encouraged to communicate with Ms. Bonnie Carroll, President, Information
International Associates, Inc., Post Office Box 4219, Oak Ridge, TN 37831.
Voice: (615) 481-0388, fax (615) 481-0390. Group exploring ways to exploit
information for government use.
Conflict Studies Research Centre - RMS Sandhurst (CSRC)
Various reports can be retrieved on the Internet at URL
//gopher.nato.int:70/1, under menu: Other International
Organizations/Institutes of International/Strategic Affairs/Conflict Studies
Research Centre - RMA Sandhurst (CSRC):
Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)
(703) 274-3848. Has an on-line service.
Environmental Defense Intelligence
Defense Intelligence Agency, Mr. Constantine. Voice (202) 373-3455,
fax (202) 373-8741. Heading a project to define the needs and requirements
for producing environmental/disaster relief intelligence.
STIC Open Source Committee (OSS)
Mr. Thomas Pedtke, Chair. (503) 257-6121. This committee was formed in
October 1991. It mission is fourfold. First, to advocate open source
information and the formation of DCI level advocacy committees and
mechansims. Second, to advocate the development of analytical tools to cope
with the volume of textual information. Third, to provide a forum for
representatives of the technical analysis community to share information
about open source information, access and analytical tools. Fourth,
represent the interests of the technical analytic communities in the Open
Source Steering Council.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS)
(703) 733-6315. Has an on-line service.
Handbook of Latin American Studies
Library of Congress' Hispanic Division. Voice: (415)691-2207, fax
(415)964-0943, or via Internet at <[email protected]>. Contains
11,000 entries starting with 1990. Annual access for one to five
simultaneous users costs $690 a year.
Interagency Gray Literature Working Group (IGLWG)
Chairman is Michael Pounder, FBIS (703) 733-6315. The IGLWG meets every
third Wednesday of the month at FBIS, Reston, VA. All government and
military users and suppliers of gray literature are welcome.
Latin American Data Base
A database consortium on Latin America formed with the University of Miami
and the University of California at Los Angeles. Provides access to an
electronic archive of publications and publishes several electronic
publications.
NASA's Tech Scan
For additional information send electronic mail to <[email protected]>.
Voice line is (301) 621-0390.
Free service alerts subscribers to the latest aerospace-related worldwide
scientific and technical information that has been published. For instant
access via Internet, <[email protected]>, or <gopher.sti.nasa.gov> or
<ftp.sti.nasa.gov>.
National Military Intelligence Association (NMIA)
9200 Centerway Road, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879, Voice: (301)840-6642,
Facsimile: (301)840-8502
National Technical Information Center
(703) 487-4080. Has an on-line service.
Open Source Intelligence proponent
The U.S. intelligence community is represented in open source intelligence
matters by Dr. Joseph Markowitz, Director of the Community Open Source
Program Office (COSPO). Dr. Markowitz can be reached at (703) 482-8486,
fax (703) 482-0684 (from 0800-1700 EST only). His address is:
Dr. Joseph Markowitz, Director
Community Open Source Program Office
c/o Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Pathfinder Software Advisory Group (SAG)
Pathfinder is the only Intelligence Community developed analytical
tool. Mr. Timothy Hendrickson is the Program Manager. He is located at the
National Ground Intelligence Center, Charlottesville, VA. (804) 980-7242.
Electronic mail <[email protected]>. Pathfinder is available without charge
to all military and government organizations. The SAG meets every two to
three months at Presearch, Inc. in Fairfax, VA.
The Electronic Embassy Project of The American University
School of International Service, The American University, 4400
Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016-8071. Voice: (202)885-1701,
fax: (202)885-2494 (fax), Internet: <[email protected]>. Provides
Internet access to resources at American University and communication with
U.S. embassies to those seeking information about foreign countries.
U.S. Army Combined Arms Command, Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO)
Director, Foreign Military Studies Office, ATTN: ATZL-SAS, Ft. Leavenworth,
KS 66027-5015. Voice: (913) 684-4333/4434, Fax: (913) 684-4701,
Internet: <[email protected]> . FMSO produces a wide range of
products on military security matters. All FMSO products are listed in the
annual FMSO Production Program, which is available on request.
Organizations and Business Services - Private
ABI/Inform Ondisc-Global Edition
For information call England, +(44 88) 374-4123, fax +(44 88) 374-4024.
Provides a database including more than 350 sources from outside the U.S.
ACCESS,
1511 K Street, N.W., Suite 643, Washington, D.C. 20005-1401.
Voice: (202) 783-6050 or (800) 888-6033, fax (202) 783-4767. A non-profit,
non-advocacy information service on international security, peace, and world
affairs issues.
Aerobureau Corporation
Suite 115, 1350 Beverly Road, McLean, VA 22101, voice (703) SKY-NEWS.
Provide several air-breathing surveillance aircraft including a
remote-controlled drone.
Bookstacks Unlimited, Inc.
is an on-line bookstore which carries more than 250,000 titles which can be
searched by subject, author, title, keyword or ISBN. Connect through the
INTERNET at telnet books.com or through modem connection
to (216) 861-0469 (8/N/1).
Britton Lee Inc.
P.O. Box 8, Los Gatos, CA 95031, voice (408) 370-1598,
facsimile (408) 370-1400. For information contact Anne Wheeler. Developing
tools to scan very large databases using "semantic network database
technology".
Centre for Information Research, Moscow, Russia
Kirill Tchaschchin or Valery Bardin at +7 095 195-4573 (Russia),
email [email protected] or [email protected]; in the United States
contact Steve Usdin, Global Press, Suite 630, National Press Building,
Washington, D.C. 20045, voice: (202) 662-7431, fax (202) 662-7433, email
[email protected]. Provide information for clients in the former Soviet
Union and internationally.
Delphi
Delphi Internet Services Corp., 1030 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge,
MA 02138. (800)695-4005. On-line service provider offering full access to
the Internet. Over 150 services including document searches, news, weather,
downloading of software, forums, e-mail, financial, travel, games.
Direct Information Access Corporation (DIAC)
President is LtGen James Williams, USA (Ret), former director of
the Defense Intelligence Agency. Voice (703) 978-9428 or (703) 978-9428.
The company offers a wide range of political and economic risk analyses,
overseas site selection surveys and a program to support corporate
counterintelligence
.
Dow Jones Information Services
(609) 452-1511. Offers a real-time news retrieval service scanning 60
different databases including financial information, world news, quotes,
Standard & Poors, Dun & Bradstreet.
Drexel's College of Information Studies
Professor Thomas A. Childers, PhD, Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA).
For information contact Ms. Profit at Internet
<[email protected]>. Developing courses in competitive
intelligence. Also offers a course on the Internet.
Earth Observation Satellite Company (EOSAT)
EOSAT, 4300 Forbes Boulevard, Lanham, MD 20706, voice (301) 552-0537, fax
(301) 552-0507, TELEX 277685 LSAT UR. Providing products from Landsat and
other satellite platforms.
Economist Intelligence Unit
Economist Intelligence Unit, 111 West 57th Street, New York City, NY 10003.
For information call Cathy Shelton at (212) 554-0600, fax (212) 586-1182.
Produces numerous products including quarterly country forecasts, country
risk assessments, and regional newsletters. Preparing to offer a CD-ROM
version of these products.
Forensic & Investigative Accountants
Paul McLaughlin, Lindquist Avey Macdonald Baskerville, One Financial Place, One Adelaide Street East 30th Floor, Toronto, Canada M5C 2V9. Voice: +1 (416) 777-2440, Fax +1 (416) 777-2441. Expertise incurrent and historical tracking of funds associated with the proliferation of weapons, terrorism, nacotics, and economic warfare.
INDIVIDUAL, Inc.
Jim Leightheiser, voice (800) 766-4224 x303, fax (617) 864-4066. Cambridge, MA company founded in 199. Uses the proprietary software developed at Cornell University, called SMART (System for Retrievaland Manipulation of Text). Scan 10,000 articles received daily and provide tailored reports to custoers by fax or e-mail.
Information Access
Mr. Winston Maike, email to <[email protected]> or fax to +61 7 368 4969. Offers document acquisitio services in Australia.
Information Security Research Centre,
Director, Information Security Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434 Brsbane, Queensland 4001 Australia, voice +61 7 223-2752 for literature. Activities include cryptograhy and virus protection.
Jane's Information Group
Jane's Information Group, 1340 Braddock Place, Suite 300, Alexandria, VA 22314-1651. Voice (800)824-768, (703)683-3700, fax (703)836-1593. For information contact Sally Velthaus. Premier worldwide nformation source on defense, weaponry, civil aviation and transportation. Also publishes the Sentinl series of country reports containing military, geographic and civil information. Information provied in printed, CD-ROM formats and on-line.
Klassic Concepts, Intelligence Collection Consultants
Mr. Kenneth Cates, 4813 Lake Hurst Drive, Waco, TX 76710, voice/fax (817) 776-9171. Provides privatesector signal intelligence (SIGINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT) services.
Logicon Operating Systems
Tybel Litwin, voice: (703) 486-3500 x 2353, fax (703) 920-7086. Company has developed a new tool forthe Logicon Message Dissemination System (LMDS) called Automated Transaction Generator (ATG). They ae working on an installation for America Online which will allow users to create personal profiles ad fine-tune the input they receive from the different newsgroups. At the same time, using ATG (compaible with Lotus Notes), they can create and update relational databases and impose uniform format onmultiple incoming sources.
Mead Data Central
(800) 426-7675, (513) 865-7981. Provide the LEXIS/NEXIS databases which contain thousands of newspapr articles.
MITRE Corp
Mr. William Ruh. (703) 883-6529. Provides support to U.S. government agencies designing and implemening open source systems.
Monterey Institute of International Studies
Mr. Christopher C. Fitz. (408)647-4193. Publishes databases on diskettes (ASCII format). Has three min database diskette packages. Two deal with international commerce (specifically, missile technolog and nuclear technology). The third deals with CIS nuclear issues. The CIS database contains primarysource information on nuclear proliferation.
Currently developing a database on international organizations. Also have a special database on Iraq
Cost: search engine software is $3,000. Annual subscriptions are $3,000 for one database or $5,000 fr 2 databases.
NAMEBASE
Mr. Daniel Brandt, Public Information Research, Post Office Box 680635, San Antonio, Texas 78268. Toorder full-text for specific names (you can ask him to do a search for you on the spot), call (210) 09-3160, or fax (210) 509-3161. Program on three diskettes containing 76,229 names, 165,275 citation, 560 sources, and 543 annotations compiled over ten years which identifies U.S. and foreign intellience personnel as well as international criminals.
NewsNet
(800) 952-0122, (215) 527-8030. Provides easy-to-use access to a database containing 700 different nwsletters focused on a wide range of industries as well as twelve international wire services.
OPSEC Professionals Society (OPS)
120 West Church Street.
Frederick, MD 21701-5411
(301) 663-1418
PSC, Inc.
Mr. Larry Harvey. 12330 Pinecrest Road, Reston, VA 20191. (703) 716-5039.
Research @pscusa.com. http://www.pscusa.com Provides support to US
government agencies and the business sector designing and implementing open
source systems. PSC specializes in open source research related to
international telecommunications, competitive information and law enforcement
issues as well as translation services.
Prentice Hall Online
Prentice Hall Legal & Financial Services, 15 Columbus Circle,
New York, NY 0023. (800)833-9848. Online service (800) 833-0431.
Provides legal and financial information on corporations and individuals,
both US and foreign. Offers training and on-line support.
Research Front Database
David A. Pendlebury, Editor of Science Watch, 3501 Market Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19104.(215) 386-0100. This database covers over ten years
of the combined Science Sitation Index and the Social Science Citation Index
as well as the SCI-Map Software Package which allows users to explore the
structure of research in any nation or discipline.
ResearchBase
FJV Company, fax (703) 271-5989 request for introductory package. This
database identifies and tracks the latest research on international
relations, international trade, and global economic issues.
Syracuse University, School of Information Science
Mike Weiner, TextWise, voice (716) 787-0120, fax (716) 787-0111. Developing
a software system called TextWise which uses sophisticated linguistic
analysis techniquest to extract information from large databases.
Teldan Advanced Systems, Ltd
7, Derech Hashalom, Tel-Aviv 67892, Israel. Voice (972) 3 695-0073,
fax (972) 2 695-6359. Publishes Global Defense Information on CD-ROM,
consisting of three main elements: DefenseNet provides abstracts and indexes
on the world's defense and aerospace publications from 1986 to date,
including companies and contracts. Accompanying DefenseNet is the U.S.
Naval Institute Military Database in two parts: "Nations/Armed Forces/Order
of Battle", and "Weapons/ Systems/ Platforms".
TELTECH: Technical Knowledge Service
Roger Anderson, Government Account Executive, TELTECH, Inc., at 2624
Woodley Place NW, Washington, DC 2008, voice (202) 667-8444,
facsimile (202) 667-8399. Provides fast, confidential telephone access to
leading specialists in virtually every area of science and technology.
The Information Professionals Institute
46 Hiller Drive, Oakland, CA 94618, voice (510) 649-9743,
facsimile (510) 704-8646, CompuServe <76220,454>. Offers one-day
courses ($225) on how to be an information broker; overview of on-line
searching; and a public records seminar in a number of locations.
The Interagency OPSEC Support Staff (IOSS)
6411 Ivy Lane, Suite 400
Greenbelt, MD 20770-1405
(301) 982-0323
Tokyo Intelligence & Research College
Director Kosei Tashiro, Collins Building, 3-1-22 Nishiochiai, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo, Japan 161, voice +(81) 3-5982-3261, fax +(81) 3-5982-3439.
Toll-Free Access to Bulletin Board Services
Concentric Research Corp.,400 41st Street, Bay City,
Mich., 48708. (800)745-2747, or Ms. Kristine Loosley (517) 895-0500,
Internet: [email protected]. Concentric Research Corp. (CRC) and AT&T are
combining the attributes of two services that will enable subscribers to
gain access to hundreds of electronic bulletin boards (BBSs) through the
convenience of a nationwide seven-digit toll-free number.
UnCover Company
3801 East Florida, Suite 200, Denver, CO 80210.
Email address - [email protected]. (303) 758-3030. This company is a spin
off of the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. It offers Internet
access to a database covering over 5 million articles from 15,000 journals
updated within 48 hours of receipt. For a fee, articles can be directly
faxed.
United Press International's Photo Network
Ms. Alyson Myers, Director of Business Development for UPI's Photo Network.
Voice (202) 898-8248, fax (202) 371-8247. This bulletin board system
contains current photographs pertaining to the news of the day, both foreign
and domestic. Each downloaded image costs $25.00 plus time charges. UPI
provides the software and user technical support.
Publications
American Intelligence Journal
The Editor, AIJ, ISF Box 6712, Falls Church, Virginia 22040. Quarterly
journal for intelligence professionals. $25/year(U.S.A), $34(others).
CD-ROM Professional
Pemberton Press, Inc. 462 Danbury Road, Wilton, Connecticut 06897-2126.
$98/year. March 1994 article on "Earth Science CD-ROMS: A Collection Buyer's
Guide"
Central America Update
Electronic publication available from the Latin American Database.
Chronicle of Latin American Economic Affairs
CIA Video TVCN-9355, "Open Source: First Choice"
An unclassified but For Official Use Only videotape that is 15 minutes long,
and would be a useful introduction to a class or discussion considering open
source intelligence support to the community. CIA employees
call (703) 482-7409. Other U.S. government employees call Mary Lewis at
(703) 482-2216. Foreign governments and private sector, work through your
appropriate U.S. government action officer.
Competitive Intelligence Review
Kurt Molholm and Forrest Frank of the Defense Technical Information
Center, article titled "CENDI-Improving the Flow of Scientific and
Technical Information", Spring 1994
CompuServe Companion: Finding Newspapers and Magazines Online.
This directory focuses on the 3,300 magazines, newsletter, and newspapers available in fulltext on CmpuServe. It also suggest the fastest, least expensive route to these sources. Price $29.95 plus posage. To order when paying by Visa or MasterCard, call (800) 247-6553, ask for Ruth Orenstein. To ordr by mail, call to obtain postage cost and mailing address.
European Security
Frank Cass and Co., Gainsorough House, Gainsborough Road, London E11 1RS. Subscription approximatel $50/year individual and $90/year institution depending on prevailing exchange rate.
Examining the Intelligence Community's Infrastructure for Exploiting Gray Information
Mason H. Soule, Hugh L. Shaffer and Shepard S. Kanarek. Final Report. Project HAVE SAM, dated 29 Sepember 1994. Battelle, 505 King Avenue, Columbus, OH 43201-2693. This report was prepared for the Natonal Air Intelligence Center. It contains listings of gray information databases maintained by both .S. and foreign governments and private organizations.
Fulltext Sources Online
By Ruth Orenstein. Bibliodata. For ordering details call (617-444-1154 or fax (617) 449-4584. Twice-early identifies periodicals and databases by specific areas and topics. $90 for a single issue, $16 for one year.
Information Gatherer Newsletter
Worldwide Consultants (Chicago), email <[email protected]. $20/year. A new electronic and hardcpy quarterly for investigators, information brokers, records researchers, intelligence analysts, libarians, and others.
Intelligence and National Security
Frank Cass and Co., Gainsorough House, Gainsborough Road, London E11 1RS. Subscription approximatel $50/year individual and $90/year institution depending on prevailing exchange rate.
Intelligence Newsletter & MedNews
10, rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris, FRANCE. Voice: + 33 1 45 08 14 80, Facsimile +33 1 45 08 59 83. A b-weekly newsletter in English covering intelligence, technology, weaponry, proliferation and extremim. Approximate cost is $450/year with a 50% discount for government agencies.
INTELSCOPE: The Professional Newsmagazine of the International Association of Law Enforcement Intellgence Analysts, Inc.
: For a sample issue and/or an application form for membership which includes subscriptions, call (35) 716-3024. or (305) 597-2007.
Examples of some short articles: "Military Intelligence Concepts on a
New Battlefield: Domestic Drug Investigations", "Private Vendor Database
Important Support for Law Enforcement", and "International Organized Crime:
Emerging Threat to U.S. Security".
Intercepts
P.O. Box 7176, Armarillo, Texas 79114. A monthly newsletter produced by
Steven Douglas, author of The Comprehensive Guide to Military Monitoring,
which provides updated signals intelligence information on U.S. military
installations. $18.00/year.
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
Intel Publishing Group, Inc., Box 188, Stroudsburg, PA 18360. Subscription
is $45/year for individuals, $75/year for institutions.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Volume 45, (January 1994), article by Ruth C. T. Morris, "Toward a
User-Centered Information Service". Discusses the role of libraries in
providing decision-support services.
Monitoring Technology Proliferation: An Open Source Methodology for
Generating Proliferation Intelligence
Lt Daniel Green, USN, thesis written while a student at the Naval
Postgraduate School.
netguide
This 384-page book describes 60,000 bulletin boards, 9,000 networks,
500 libraries and all the commercial on-line services. Free updates are
offered on-line. Price - $19.00. (800) 345-8112 to order.
North Korea: A Potential Time Bomb
Mr. Robert Hall, Editor, Jane's Intelligence Review, Sentinel House,
163 Brighton Road, Coulsdon, Surrey, CR5 2NH, United Kingdom.
Voice: +(44 81) 763-1030, Fax +(44 81) 763 1423. Supplement to the April
1994 issue of Jane's Intelligence Review. Provides coverage of North Korean
chemical and biological capabilities, their ballistic missile program, and
how they might attack across the demilitarized zone.
NotiSur-Latin American Political Affairs
Electronic publication available from the Latin American Database.
Open Source Quarterly
Open Source Publishing, PO Box 3752, Reston, VA 20195-1752.
Subscription is $40/year for individuals, $28/year for students and free to
government libraries. The OSQ serves as the open source community's
professional journal. For more information visit the Open Source Quarterly
Web Site at http://www.eajardines.com/osq.html
OSS NOTICES
The monthly 20-page publication of OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc., the
non-profit educational association which serves as the international
clearinghouse for open sources, systems, and services. An annual
subscription costs $500 for institutions, $250 for individuals. This is the
single most authoritative and comprehensive vehicle for monitoring open
source intelligence policy, practice, and sources, systems, and services. To
subscribe call (703) 242-1700 or fax (703) 242-1711.
OSS '92 and OSS '93 - Video tapes
Video tapes of presentations at these Open Source Solution conferences are
available from OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc., 11005 Langton Arms Court, Oakton,
VA 22124-1807. (703) 242-1701.
P1000 Strategic Plan for Information Visualization
P1000 is an operating committee of the Advanced Information Processing and
Analysis Steering Group. This report dated 21 September 1994 is described
as a roadmap to provide information visualization technology broadly within
the Intelligence Community. Information visualization is the two-way visual
and interactive interface between humans and their information resources.
Visualization technologies meld the human's capacity for visual thinking
with the computational capacity for analytical computing. The goal of
visualization is to enhance the process of discovery, understanding, and
presentation of knowledge relevant to intelligence analysis. Visualization
techniques are an important tool in the need for analysts to deal with
dramatically increased volumes on information.
Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century
Alvin Toffler. Bantam 1990. This book is a must read for everyone in the information age. The world s being divided into the fast and the slow (relative to information handling). Power has three legs,wealth, violence, and knowledge. Wealth is the purview of the rich. Violence is the purview of the srong. But knowledge can be used by the poor and weak.
Preparing U.S. Intelligence for the Information Age - Coping With the
Information Overload
Scientific and Technical Intelligence Committee (STIC) 93-001 dated
January 1993, (Unclassified). This report describes the problems faced by
analysts confronted with enormous quantites of information. It suggests that
new analytical tools are required to select and prioritize collected
information.
Preparing U.S. Intelligence for the Information Age
- Part II: AnalyticalTools to Cope With the Open-Source Explosion.
STIC 93-0007, dated December 1993, (Unclassified). This report describes the
need for tools to collect and organize information. Tools must also be
developed which can help to understand the meaning of information. Lastly,
tools used to build tools must be developed.
Preparing U.S. Intelligence for the Information Age
- Part III: Tools Specifications
STIC (in press). This report specifies the type of tools needed by the
Intelligence Community to acquire information, process and analyze the
information, and disseminate finished intelligence products.
Preparing U.S. Intelligence for the Information Age
- Part IV: Training
STIC (in press). The creation and delivery of analytical tools, along with
training, will be the linchpin of the Intelligence Community's ability to
convert information into intelligence. Training and a continued mentorship
of Intelligence Community analysts will be required to master the use of
tools, network across the Open Source Information System architecture, and
apply these skills in new and artful ways of performing analysis.
Preparing U.S. Intelligence for the Information Age
- Part V: Professional Intermediaries
STIC (in press). The changing and new roles of the professional intermediary
are examined in relation to the changing role of the Intelligence Community
and the recent emphasis on open source information and the Community's Open
Source Information System.
Secrets of the Super Searchers: The Accumulated Wisdom of 23 of the World's
Top Online Searchers.
by Reva Basch, an internationally recognized information broker. Available
from Online Inc., 462 Danbury Road, Wilton CT 06897-2126. (203) 761-1466,
fax (203) 761-1444. $34.95.
SHARING THE SECRETS: Open Source Intelligence and the War on Drugs
by Dr. James Holden-Rhodes. Available in a special limited edition from
OSS, Inc., and is expected to be published in 1995 by a commercial printing
house. This book is the true story of how Department of Energy laboratories
utilized their analysts and computers to exploit vast quantities of open
source information to produce tactical intelligence in support of the drug
interdiction effort under the operational command of the Commander in Chief,
U.S. Southern Command. The book also documents problems with existing
intelligence and operational practices which interfere with the commander's
ability to act on intelligence.
SIGNAL
Subscriptions Department, 4400 Fair Lakes Court, Fairfax,
Virginia 22033-3899. $44/year(U.S.), $65/year(all others). Articles on
imaging technologies, law enforcement applications.
SourceMex-Economic News & Analysis on Mexico
Electronic publication available from the Latin American Database.
The Comprehensive Guide to Military Monitoring
Universal Electronics, Inc., Columbus, OH. (614) 866-4605. $23.95. Book by
Steven Douglas describing signals intelligence information on U.S. military
installations.
The Journal of Strategic Studies
Frank Cass and Co., Gainsorough House, Gainsborough Road, London E11 1RS.
Subscription approximately $50/year individual and $90/year institution
depending on prevailing exchange rate.
War in the Information Age
Monograph available from Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S.
Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania 17013-5050.
(717) 245-3234.
Washington Post
2-3 August 1993, two-part series of articles describing the threat posed by
organizations united by ideology.
"Islamic Warriors: Radical Movements Thrive on Loose Structure, Strict Ideology" (insert article: "Mlitarized Hezbollah Follows Lead of Iran")
"Islamic Warriors: Global Network Provides Money, Haven" (insert article: "A New Strain of Terrorism Groups are Fast, Loose, Hard to Find")
12 June 1994, "The Secret Korea Debate: Washington Teeters Between Mind-Reading, Miscalculation" by avid Ignatius in the Outlook section.
WIRED
WIRED, Post Office Box 191826, San Francisco, California 94119-9866. Magazine covering developments n cyberspace. On the Internet, e-mail to <[email protected]>, or call (800) 769-4733], or (415 904-0660.
Worldwide Directory of Defense Authorities with International Defense Organizations and Treaties
Jonathan Hixon, Publisher, 7979 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 900, Bethesda, MD. Voice (301) 718-8770, ax (301) 718-8494.
Appendix D
Open Source Program
The full text of the directive establishing the intelligence community open source program is providd below.
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTIVE
COMMUNITY OPEN SOURCE PROGRAM
(Effective 1 March 1994)
Pursuant to the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, and Executive
Order 12333, policies and procedures are hereby established for the
management of the Intelligence Community Open Source Program.
I. Purpose
The Intelligence Community recognizes that more effective use of open
sources in a variety of intelligence applications will lead to improved
products and services for Intelligence Community consumers. To manage the
use of open source information by the Intelligence Community, this directive
establishes the Community Open Source Program and a Community Open Source
Program Office (COSPO) within the Central Intelligence Agency to develop,
coordinate, and oversee implementation of the Community Open Source Program.
The Director of COSPO will be appointed by the Director of Central
Intelligence, will be his Principal for all open source matters, and will
serve as the Open Source Program Manager. This directive also establishes a
Community Open Source Steering Committee comprised of senior managers
appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence.
2. Definition
Open source information for purposes of this directive is publicly available
information (i.e., any member of the public could lawfully obtain the
information by request or observation), as sell as other unclassified
information that has limited public distribution or access. Open source
information also includes any information that may be used in an
unclassified context without compromising national security or intelligence
sources and methods. If the information is not publicly available, certain
legal requirements relating to collection, retention, and dissemination may
apply.
3. Objectives
The COSPO is responsible for the definition and defense of the Open Source
Program in the planning cycle, and for providing guidance and oversight to
the program in the execution cycle. The Office, with Community departmental
open source program managers, develops an optimum allocation of resources
across the Community in the execution year, subject to ratification by the
Open Source Steering Committee. Changes in the scope and resources of the
Open Source Program must be agreed to by the Steering Committee. Through
this collaborative process, the objectives of the COSPO are to:
a. oversee a process for coordinating responsive actions to satisfy
user needs;
b. provide advocacy and defense of departmental development and
operational efforts;
c. ensure funds for critical open source activities;
d. oversee a process for identifying and prioritizing open source
substantive requirements.
4. Open Source Management
The Open Source Steering Committee provides top-level program and policy
guidance to the Open Source Program. The Steering Committee is chaired by
the Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs and includes the
Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Directors of
the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, as well as
the Deputy Director for Science and Technology of the Central Intelligence
Agency, the Deputy Director for Support Services of the National Security
Agency, and the Deputy Director for Production of the Defense Intelligence
Agency. The Director of COSPO serves as Executive Secretary to the Steering
Committee. The Departmental Program Council, comprised of customer and
provider representatives from all interested Intelligence Community
organizations, will be chaired by the Director of COSPO and will provide
advice and counsel to the Community Open Source Program Office. It will
serve the Director of COSPO as a vehicle for discussing proposed Community
program initiatives, communicating customer and provider feedback, and
ensuring implementation of the Open Source Program.
The COSPO will establish other standing or ad hoc advisory and coordinating
boards, panels, and committees as necessary to carry out its program
management responsibilities.
5. COSPO Functions
Functions of COSPO shall include:
a. Strategic Planning - The COSPO will oversee implementation of the
Community Open Source Strategic Plan. As necessary, the COSPO will
review and update the plan.
b. Program Formulation and Representation - The COSPO will issue
planning guidance and will coordinate preparation and execution of
the Open Source Program. With departmental open source managers, the
COSPO will review execution-year programs prior to the execution
year in order to optimize the flexibility and responsiveness of the
Open Source Program. The COSPO also will conduct ad hoc program
analysis and evaluations as necessary.
c. Initiative and Innovation Sponsorship - Using funds appropriated
for the purpose, the COSPO will begin Community initiatives and
innovations, which subsequently will be funded in departmental
programs.
d. Operational Services of Common Concern - The COSPO will ensure
Community coordination of the collection and acquisition of open
source information and will represent open source capabilities and
interests in national processes designed to manage user information
needs.
e. Systems Architecture - The COSPO will coordinate the design and
implementation of the Community open source architecture and
associated standards. The COSPO will independently assess currently
employed technologies and procedures and evaluate promising
alternatives.
f. Development of Services of Common Concern - The COSPO will
coordinate the development of new processing and exploitation tools
and promote the integration of automated data processing tools
developed elsewhere.
g. Open Source Advocacy and Representation - The COSPO will defend
Open Source Program submissions before Community executive review
bodies, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congress, and
will represent the Open Source Program in appropriate Government and
public forums.
6. Structure and Administration
As an Intelligence Community entity, the COSPO, located in the Central
Intelligence Agency and reporting to the Deputy Director for Science and
Technology, is jointly staffed in roughly equal proportion by the Central
Intelligence Agency and other Intelligence Community officers who are
detailed to the COSPO. The Director of COSPO will normally, but not
necessarily, be an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. The serving
Director and Principal Deputy will not be from the same department or
agency. Managers of the General Defense Intelligence Program, the
Consolidated Cryptologic Program, the Central Agency Intelligence Program,
and other intelligence programs will provide appropriate personnel to staff
the COSPO with required skills; officers normally will serve rotational
assignments of at least two years' duration.
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